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A   PURITAN   BOHEMIA 


A  PURITAN   BOHEMIA 


BY 

MARGARET  SHERWOOD 

AUTHOR  OF  "AN  EXPERIMENT  IN  ALTRUISM" 


LEONTES.    Where's  Bohemia  ?    Speak. 
LORD.    Here  in  your  city. 

WINTER'S  TALE 


Nefo  gorfe 
THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

LONDON :  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 
1896 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1896, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Norfnoob 

J.  S.  Cushing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith 
Norwood  M»«i.  U.S.A. 


A   PURITAN    BOHEMIA 


PROLOGUE 

"  I  go  to  prove  my  soul 


BROWNING'S  Paracelsus. 

"  You  hold  my  whole  life  in  the  hollow 
of  your  hand,  like  that." 

The  speaker  held  out  a  broad  palm,  and 
a  great  drop  of  rain  splashed  into  it. 

"  Whatever  strength  or  talent  I  possess 
is  vowed  to  your  service." 

"You  are  letting  the  rain  drop  on  my 
face,"  said  the  girl,  with  an  accent  of 
reproach. 

The  young  man  righted  the  umbrella 
and  gazed  gloomily,  past  the  west-bound 
steamer  that  lay  off  the  wharf,  out  toward 
the  sea.  The  twinkle  had  died  out  of  his 


2229092 


2  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

eyes.  His  stalwart  figure  drooped  a  lit- 
tle with  an  expression  of  defeat.  Anne 
Bradford  glanced  up  at  him,  and  a  look  of 
pity  softened  the  merry  determination  of 
her  face. 

"  I  can't  do  it,  Howard,"  she  said  softly. 
"  It  would  spoil  my  whole  life." 

"Tell  me  why,"  he  demanded,  with  an 
impatient  shake  of  his  head  that  brought 
a  lock  of  hair  down  over  his  forehead. 

"  I  haven't  time,"  answered  the  girl 
mischievously. 

"The  steamer  doesn't  start  for  fifteen 
minutes,"  he  groaned. 

"  I  mean  that  I  haven't  time  to  take 
care  of  you.  I  am  too  busy." 

"I  won't  waste  your  time." 

"  But  I  am  serious.  This  is  no  laugh- 
ing matter,"  said  the  girl  reprovingly. 

"  I  had  an  idea  that  you  thought  it  was," 
he  muttered. 

"I  have  my  work  to  do,  the  work  that  I 
have  wanted  ever  since  I  was  a  little  girl. 
I  have  spent  five  years  here  in  getting 
ready  for  it.  Now  I  wish  to  go  back  to 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  3 

America  to  try  my  power.  It  will  take  all 
my  time  and  strength  and  devotion " 

"That's  just  the  way,"  he  interrupted, 
"that  the  modern  young  woman  talks  in 
story-books.  You  have  read  too  many 
novels.  She  is  always  bent  on  a  solitary 
and  egoistic  life,  but  in  the  end  she  always 
gives  in." 

"  That  is  only  in  story-books,"  retorted 
Anne  Bradford.  "  And  I'm  not  a  modern 
young  woman.  I  am  old-fashioned,  and 
very  much  like  my  Puritan  grandfather." 

"  I  wish,"  said  Howard  Stanton,  with  a 
sudden  flash  of  impertinence,  "that  you 
were  a  little  bit  more  like  your  Puritan 
grandmother." 

"  You  see,"  said  Anne  wistfully,  "  I've 
got  to  do  it  all  myself.  I  am  not  a  genius, 
and  yet  I  think  that  if  I  was  born  for  any 
purpose  it  was  to  paint  pictures.  Is  trying 
to  find  one's  best  self-expression  egoism  ?" 

Her  eyes  were  following  the  red-brown 
sail  of  a  tiny  boat,  just  disappearing  in  the 
fog.  She  would  like  to  catch  and  keep 
that  colour  effect. 


4  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

Howard  Stanton  looked  down  in  silence. 
It  was  useless  to  plead.  There  was  resolu- 
tion in  every  line  of  the  little  figure  in 
the  gray-checked  travelling-dress.  The 
obstinacy  of  that  clear-cut  face  under  the 
visor  of  the  close-fitting  cap  he  had  known 
since  childhood. 

"  I  can't  stand  it,  Nannie ! "  he  ex- 
claimed. "  Reasons  and  arguments  simply 
have  nothing  to  do  with  it.  I  cannot 
stand  it  to  wait  here  and  see  you  sail 
away  out  of  my  life.  You  are  in  the 
warp  and  the  woof  of  the  whole  of  it.  I 
have  loved  you  ever  since  I  was  five  years 
old." 

The  vehement  words  of  the  young  man 
and  the  girl's  broken  answers  were  drowned 
in  the  noises  of  the  wharf  and  the  sound 
of  the  water  breaking  on  the  piles.  Pres- 
ently there  was  a  lull.  A  cry  of  "  All 
ashore  !  "  came  from  the  steamer.  Anne 
Bradford  paused  on  the  gang-plank  and 
looked  up,  hurt  by  her  sympathy  with  this 
strong  feeling  that  she  could  not  under- 
stand. 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  5 

"  Plunge  into  your  work,"  she  said  re- 
assuringly. "  You  came  to  Europe  to 
work,  you  remember." 

"  No,"  he  answered,  "  I  came  to  Europe 
to  find  you.  I  can't  do  my  work  without 
you." 

"  And  I  can't  do  mine  with  you.  Isn't 
it  unfortunate  ?  Now  you  must  go 
ashore." 

"  I  am  not  going  ashore,"  he  asserted 
doggedly.  "  I  am  going  to  stay  on  the 
steamer  and  go  home  too." 

The  girl  grasped  her  travelling-bag. 

"  If  you  stay  on,  of  course  I  must  go 
back." 

As  the  vessel  moved  away  the  young 
man  stood  among  the  boxes  on  the  wharf, 
his  head  uncovered  in  the  rain.  Anne 
Bradford  watched  from  the  slippery  deck. 
The  city,  with  its  one  cathedral  spire, 
faded  in  gray  mist  beyond  the  flat  green 
fields  and  shadowy  windmills. 

"  Europe  is  all  over  for  me,"  she 
sighed. 

The  fog:  in  the  air  and  the  moisture  in 


6  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

his  eyes  soon  hid  from  Howard  Stanton 
the  little  figure  at  the  vessel's  stern.  He 
turned  on  his  heel. 

"  Theories  be  damned,"  he  said  savagely 
as  he  strode  away. 


CHAPTER   I 

HALF-WAY  up  the  hill  lay  the  Square. 
The  streets  that  bounded  it  on  north  and 
south  sloped  westward  to  the  river.  On 
the  east  they  climbed  the  hill  and  disap- 
peared. The  elm  trees  and  the  ragged 
willow  in  the  centre  of  the  Square  were 
gray  with  dust.  It  was  late  September. 

The  place  had  an  air  peculiarly  its  own, 
representing,  in  its  dignified  seclusion,  the 
ideal  aspects  of  an  old  New  England  city. 
Long  ago  wealthy  merchants  had  built 
these  wide  brick  houses.  Now  artists, 
poets,  scholars,  and  musicians,  the  build- 
ers of  houses  not  made  with  hands,  had 
become  inheritors  of  the  large  rooms,  with 
windows  overlooking  the  roofs  and  chim- 
neys of  the  city  and  the  winding  river  in 
the  west. 

Late  one  afternoon  Anne  Bradford 
walked  slowly  home.  A  sleepy  quiet 
7 


8  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

brooded  over  the  Square.  Suddenly  the 
silence  was  broken  by  the  sound  of  many 
feet,  for  the  doors  of  the  Music  Hall  had 
been  thrown  open,  and  a  crowd  of  women 
passed  out.  A  lecture  on  Dostoievsky 
was  just  over.  Then  a  cab  came  rattling 
down  High  Street  and  stopped  at  the 
entrance  to  a  low,  irregular  structure 
bearing  the  inscription,  "  Rembrandt  Stu- 
dios." From  the  cab  stepped  a  tall 
young  girl  in  an  extremely  well-cut  gown. 
She  stood  for  a  minute  with  her  red-brown 
dress  and  auburn  hair  outlined  against 
the  dull  green  ampelopsis  that  covered 
the  building's  front.  Her  cheeks  were 
flushed.  Anne  Bradford  caught  her  look 
of  keen  interest  in  the  faded  brick  fagade, 
the  battered  stone  lions  that  guarded  the 
entrance,  and  in  the  preoccupied  women 
passing  two  by  two. 

"  What  is  that  child  doing  in  Bohe- 
mia ? "  wondered  Anne,  noticing  that  her 
trunk  was  being  carried  in.  "  It  is  some- 
body new  in  search  of  the  ideal  life.  She 
ought  to  know  that  she  cannot  enter 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  9 

the  kingdom  of  the  ideal  in  clothes  like 
that." 

The  girl  disappeared  behind  the  great 
oak  door.  Anne  followed,  pausing  for  a 
minute  to  bow  to  some  one  across  the 
Square.  It  was  a  lady  in  widow's  dress. 
Something  in  the  slender,  erect  figure 
with  the  sweeping  black  robes  smote 
the  artist's  heart  with  a  sudden  sense  of 
pity. 

"  I  wish  I  knew  more  about  Mrs.  Kent," 
she  said  to  herself. 

A  polite  voice  interrupted  her. 

"  If  you  please  'm,  I've  brought  home 
your  laundry,  and  could  you  pay  me 
now?" 

A  child  stepped  forward  from  the  stairs, 
watching  Miss  Bradford  expectantly.  She 
was  an  odd  little  creature.  The  business- 
like manner  seemed  strangely  out  of  keep- 
ing with  the  plump  cheeks  and  the  short 
calico  gown. 

"Yes,  Annabel,  I  am  going  up  directly." 

"There's  a  new  young  lady,"  whispered 
Annabel  confidentially.  "  Her  name's 


io  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

Miss  Wistar.     I  saw  it  on  her  trunk  and 
she  smiled  at  me.     She's  awful  pretty." 

Anne  Bradford  slowly  mounted  the 
stairs,  carrying  in  one  hand  a  tiny  bag 
of  rolls  for  her  breakfast,  in  the  other, 
three  new  tubes  of  paint. 


CHAPTER    II 

"  A  pleasant  land,  not  fenced  with  drab  stucco,  like 
Tyburnia  or  Belgravia;  not  guarded  by  a  huge  standing 
army  of  footmen;  not  echoing  with  noble  chariots;  a 
land  of  chambers,  billiard-rooms,  supper  rooms;  a  land 
where  soda-water  flows  freely  in  the  morning;  a  land  of 
lotus- eating  (with  lots  of  cayenne  pepper);  of  pulls  on 
the  river ;  of  delicious  readings  of  novels,  magazines, 
of  saunterings  in  many  studios;  a  land  where  men  call 
each  other  by  their  Christian  names;  where  most  are 
poor,  where  almost  all  are  young." 

THACKERAY'S  Philip. 

IT  was  not  this  old  Bohemia  that  cen- 
tred in  the  Square,  but  a  new  Bohemia, 
woman's  Bohemia  in  a  Puritan  city. 

In  certain  aspects  the  old  land  and  the 
new  are  alike.  This  too  is  a  country  with- 
out geography,  a  kingdom  of  the  air.  It 
has  no  continuous  history.  All  is  shift- 
ing, changing,  kaleidoscopic.  Here  the 
very  furniture  has  an  air  of  alertness,  as  if 
about  to  depart.  The  inhabitants,  driven 
like  sand  across  the  desert,  stop  only  for 

"  A  moment's  halt,  a  momentary  taste 
Of  Beimr " 


12  A   Puritan   Bohemia 

For  this  is  a  land  of  quest.  One  does 
not  come  to  rest  or  stay,  only  to  search 
for  that  which  one  has  not  yet  found. 

"  As  we  proceed,  it  shifts  its  place," 

and  the  days  go  by  in  swift  pursuit. 

But  here  .is  none  of  the  reckless,  happy- 
go-lucky  temper  of  the  London  Prague  or 
the  Paris  Latin  Quarter.  Life  is  earnest, 
sad,  ascetic.  Its  only  lotus-eating  is  hard 
work.  The  shadow  of  grief  rests  over  it, 
for  women  whom  life  has  robbed  come 
here  to  forget  their  sorrow,  if  may  be,  in 
philanthropy  or  in  art.  Here  eager  girls 
toil  with  pen  or  canvas,  keys  or  strings. 

Each  has  a  purpose.  The  little  black 
bag  that  the  Bohemian  carries  is  a  symbol 
of  an  aim  in  life.  It  may  hold  books,  or 
manuscript  poems,  or  comments  on  Aris- 
totle. It  may  hold  boxes  of  crackers  or 
jars  of  marmalade.  Whatever  its  contents, 
it  is  always  full. 

These  earnest  women  suffer  loneliness, 
and,  it  may  be,  failure.  But  they  have 
freedom  and  pleasant  companionship,  long 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  13 

walks  by  river-bank  or  bridge,  long  discus- 
sions by  tea-table  or  by  fireplace.  For  the 
hardship  there  is  compensation.  Here  the 
ideal  has  become  real.  One  may  hear  the 
Bohemians  condemning,  over  a  luncheon 
of  coffee  and  rolls,  the  ascetic  idea,  and 
expressing  belief  in  controlled  Epicure- 
anism. Bread  and  cheese  for  the  body's 
diet ;  Transcendentalism  for  the  mind : 
muddy  crossings  for  the  feet ;  for  the 
soul,  the  paths  among  the  stars. 

The  charm  of  evanescence  belongs  to 
this  life.  Work  and  friends  are  doubly 
dear  when  every  morning  brings  the 
thought  that  they  may  vanish.  For  the 
mortality  is  great  in  Bohemia.  It  lies  hard 
by  the  borderland  of  life,  life  with  its 
ordered  sequences  of  birth  and  death,  of 
marrying  and  giving  in  marriage,  of  family 
happenings.  A  constant  fear  walks  with 
one  that  one's  friend  may  at  any  moment 
be  drawn  to  that  bourne  whence  none 
return  to  Bohemia. 

The  charm  of  the  unexpected  belongs  to 
it.  Who  knows  what  choice  spirit  may 


14  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

come  to  abide  in  the  next  studio  or  in  the 
vacant  suite  ?  Any  day  may  bring  within 
the  borders  a  victim  to  be  sacrificed  to 
one's  art,  or  a  friend  to  be  grappled  to 
one's  soul. 

The  gathering  of  the  inhabitants  is 
ruled  by  seeming  chance.  Women  drift 
hither  through  lack  of  strong  ties  to  hold 
them  back.  Others  come  to  whom  this  is 
but  a  halting  place  in  a  road  to  a  chosen 
goal.  A  whim,  a  momentary  wish,  an  old 
ambition  revived,  guide  many  feet  to 
Bohemia. 

This  is  hence  a  peculiar  race,  bound  to- 
gether, not  by  ties  of  birth  and  family, 
only  by  community  of  interest,  of  hope,  of 
suffering.  As  in  the  world  of  mediaeval 
story  here  are  neither  old  people  nor  young 
children,  only  the  vigorous,  ready  for 
battle. 

Yet  bits  of  everyday  life  float  into 
Bohemia.  Children  come  to  play  in  the 
Square.  Humble  lovers  stroll  past,  arm 
in  arm,  and  little  girls  with  braided  hair 
walk  through  to  school.  Frail  old  ladies 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  15 

with  nodding  curls  and  men  with  hair  like 
white  spun  silk  go  tremulously  by,  wonder- 
ing at  the  queer  life  of  this  secluded  spot. 

The  place  is  as  quiet  as  a  motionless 
pool  at  the  side  of  a  moving  stream. 
Hence  the  tales  of  Bohemia  are  not  full 
of  strange  incident.  The  hero  of  romance 
does  not  dwell  here,  and  the  villain  is  un- 
known. There  are  few  men  in  this  new 
country.  Man  here  is  a  memory,  a  shadow, 
rarely  a  reality. 

And  the  stories  are  incoherent.  Only 
moments  of  life  are  represented.  Here 
are  but  the  beginnings  and  the  endings 
of  stories,  often  the  ending  that  comes 
after  the  climax,  sometimes  the  climax 
itself.  Residence  in  Bohemia  is  perhaps 
only  as  long  as  the  working  out  of  a  mood. 
Therefore  its  romances  are  not  orderly 
developments  of  plot  and  counterplot,  but 
merely  bits  of  vivid  experience  in  busy 
people's  lives. 


CHAPTER   III 

"  Truly  ...  in  respect  ...  of  itself  it  is  a  good  life. 
In  respect  that  it  is  solitary  I  like  it  very  well,  but  in 
respect  that  it  is  private  it  is  a  very  vile  life.  ...  As  it 
is  a  spare  life,  look  you,  it  suits  my  humour  well." 

As  You  Like  It. 

"DON'T  stop  working,"  begged  Mrs. 
Kent.  "I  do  so  like  to  watch  you." 

Anne  pushed  the  ruffle  of  her  blue 
gingham  painting-apron  away  from  her 
face,  and  took  up  her  brushes  again.  She 
was  retouching,  from  memory,  a  study  of 
an  old  sailor. 

Mrs.  Kent  stooped  to  pat  Miserere,  the 
studio  cat,  then  looked  at  the  pictures  on 
the  walls, — an  old  woman,  drinking  tea; 
a  white-haired  man,  warming  his  fingers 
over  the  last  coals  of  his  fire ;  a  young 
Italian  mother,  with  a  brown  baby  in  her 
arms. 

"The  things  you  do  have  an  unusual 
charm  for  me,"  said  the  caller. 

"Yet  I  am  an  utter  failure,  so  far  as 
16 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  17 

any  recognition  of  my  work  is  concerned," 
responded  the  artist  cheerfully. 

"You  have  not  been  working  long 
enough." 

"Ever  since  I  came  back  to  America. 
That  is  four  whole  years.  I  haven't  ex- 
hibited a  single  picture,  nor  sold  one.  But 
I'm  having  a  beautiful  time.  Maybe  if  it 
weren't  so  hopeless  I  should  not  be  so 
enthusiastic  about  it." 

"That  is  hard  philosophy,"  said  Mrs. 
Kent,  with  her  sad  little  smile.  "  Do  you 
suppose  that  I  could  apply  it  in  my  charity 
work  ? " 

It  was  a  peculiar  room.  The  old- 
fashioned  furniture  had  brought  into  the 
world  of  art  a  suggestion  of  serious  and 
ascetic  New  England  life.  A  tall  old  clock 
stood  by  the  cast  of  Psyche.  The  cherry 
desk,  where  the  artist's  father  had  written 
sermons  for  thirty  years,  was  crowned  by 
a  Venus  de  Milo.  From  claw-footed  table 
and  high-backed  chairs  reminders  of  the 
Vermont  parsonage  stole  across  the  warmth 
and  colour  of  the  studio.  Over  the  door 


1 8  A   Puritan   Bohemia 

Anne  had  hung  a  sketch  of  her  father's 
face  —  stern,  spiritual,  Puritan. 

The  studio  was  like  Miss  Bradford.  So 
were  the  pictures.  Mrs.  Kent  looked  at 
them  again,  wondering  at  the  likeness  be- 
tween the  artist  and  her  work.  There  was 
careful  rendering  of  the  wrinkles,  the  lines 
about  the  mouth,  the  curving  of  the  lips  ; 
but  the  eyes  were  Anne's  own.  Into  them 
all  had  crept  that  look  of  mingled  thirst 
for  life  and  fear  of  life,  and  they  looked 
out  wistfully  from  the  canvases,  full  of 
sadness,  as  if  trying  to  understand. 

Mrs.  Kent  glanced  at  the  artist's  clear 
gray  eyes,  determined  mouth,  and  smooth, 
parted  hair. 

"You  must  never  give  up." 

"I  can't,"  Anne  responded,  putting  the 
finishing  touches  on  a  thumb.  "The  work 
won't  give  me  up.  It  holds  me  as  a  cat 
does  a  mouse.  You  see,  it  has  always 
been  the  one  thing  in  the  world  for  me, 
and  life  has  had  no  meaning  apart  from  it. 
I  want  to  be  genuine  —  not  like  other 
women.  Most  women  wear  their  careers 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  19 

as  if  they  were  jewelry.  Work  is  only  a 
new  species  of  ornament.  They  aren't 
great  enough  to  lose  themselves  in  it. 

"  Only  I  should  like  one  wee  bit  of  en- 
couragement !  The  master  never  stopped 
at  my  easel,  as  he  always  does  in  books, 
to  say,  '  You  have  a  touch.  There  is  a 
future  before  you.'  I've  got  nothing  to 
depend  on  but  my  belief  in  myself." 

"  It  is  all  very  wonderful  to  me,"  said 
Mrs.  Kent,  rising  to  go.  "  How  can  you 
interpret  people's  faces  in  that  way  with- 
out having  had  their  experience  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know.  I  have  an  idea  that 
you  can  interpret  other  people's  lives  bet- 
ter if  your  own  isn't  too  much  tangled  up. 
Lack  of  life  is  life's  best  interpreter." 

There  was  a  knock  at  the  door.  The 
janitor  had  brought  Miss  Bradford  a  card. 
She  stood  for  a  minute,  turning  it  over  in 
paint-stained  fingers. 

"Say  that  I  will  come  down  directly." 

Then  she  went  back  to  her  canvas  and 
spoiled  the  thumb. 

Five  minutes  later  Anne  walked  down- 


20  A  Puritan   Bohemia 

stairs  with  Howard  Stanton's  card  in  her 
hand.  Miserere  accompanied  her  to  the 
reception-room  door,  then  dashed  away  to 
play  with  the  other  studio  cats,  Victoria  Re- 
gina,  and  Albert  Edward,  Prince  of  Wales. 

Anne  tore  up  the  card,  then  wondered 
helplessly  what  to  do  with  the  pieces.  It 
was  strange  that  Howard  should  come 
just  now.  But  then,  it  was  strange  that 
he  had  not  come  before.  She  must  be 
rather  formal  at  first.  Memories  drifted 
to  her  of  scenes  where  she  had  met  him 
in  imagination.  In  imagination  she  had 
been  quite  self-possessed.  Now  she  was 
undeniably  ill  at  ease.  This  was  only  be- 
cause of  her  haunting  anxiety  lest  she  had 
spoiled  this  man's  life. 

As  she  entered,  the  young  man  rose 
and  held  out  his  hand.  He,  apparently, 
was  not  embarrassed. 

"  I  am  presuming  upon  our  old  acquaint- 
ance," he  said.  "  Chance  has  brought  me 
to  the  city " 

"  Why,  Howard  !  "  gasped  Anne.  She 
had  not  meant  to  be  so  formal  as  that. 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  21 

He  had  not  changed,  she  thought,  as  he 
drew  a  wicker  chair  out  for  her  from  its 
position  by  the  Van  Dyck  portrait.  He 
had  the  same  voice,  the  same  light  brown 
hair,  though  the  lock  over  the  forehead 
was  gone.  Anne  suppressed  a  desire  to 
tell  him  that  he  had  grown,  remember- 
ing that  he  was  six  feet  two  when  she 
saw  him  last.  She  wondered  vaguely  at 
her  own  surprise  in  finding  him  so  ro- 
bust. 

"  When  did  you  return  from  Europe  ?  " 
she  asked  stiffly,  then  repented  having 
spoken.  That  seemed  like  alluding  to 
their  last  meeting. 

"A  year  and  a  half  ago.  I  studied  in 
Paris  first,  then  went  to  London  for  inspi- 
ration." 

"London!" 

"  People  do  not  usually  go  to  London 
for  art.  But  French  art  is  dead,  except 
for  the  Symbolists." 

This  sweeping  assertiveness  seemed  very 
familiar. 

"  I  got  hold  of  some  good  ideas  among 


22  A   Puritan   Bohemia 

the  London  Socialists.  There's  a  move- 
ment afoot  for  the  popularization  of  art. 
It  is  indirectly  the  work  of  Ruskin.  After 
I  came  home  I  taught  a  year,  just  to  send 
the  message  on." 

Anne  lifted  her  eyebrows. 

"  You  have  a  new  theory  ? " 

"  I  have,"  he  answered.  "  Moreover, 
I've  got  a  commission,  to  design  frescoes 
for  a  room  in  the  City  Hall." 

"  Here  ?  "  cried  Anne  eagerly.  Then 
she  corrected  her  manner. 

"You  have  been  very  successful.  I 
saw  notices  of  your  two  Salon  pictures. 
Why  did  the  Art  Review  call  you  an 
impressionist  ? " 

"  It's  a  perfectly  harmless  term,  as  it 
doesn't  mean  anything." 

"  You  always  were  something  of  an  im- 
pressionist in  temperament ! " 

Howard  changed  the  subject  abruptly. 
He  had  come  to  bespeak  Miss  Bradford's 
interest  in  a  pupil  of  his,  Miss  Wistar,  now 
at  the  Rembrandt  Studios.  Anne  politely 
promised  to  call. 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  23 

The  difficulties  of  finding  their  bearings 
in  these  new  waters  increased.  They 
talked  of  Hazleton,  of  their  childhood,  of 
the  water-colour  exhibition.  Finally  they 
drifted  into  a  half-merry  quarrel  over  theo- 
ries of  work.  Once  again  the  old,  boyish, 
emphatic  manner  broke  through  the  new 
reserve. 

"  Realism  !  There's  nothing  in  it,  French 
realism  anyway,  but  impure  taste  and  false 
accuracy." 

The  caller  accepted  with  apparent  inter- 
est an  invitation  to  come  again.  In  the 
street  he  fell  to  thinking. 

"Anne  has  not  changed  in  the  least, 
but  she  looks  tired.  She  has  been  work- 
ing too  hard.  And  her  father's  death  was 
hard  for  her." 

He  had  not  expected  the  reminder  of 
old  days  to  be  so  poignant. 

Anne  went  back  to  the  studio  and 
picked  up  her  brushes.  Howard  had  im- 
proved beyond  her  best  hopes  for  him. 
He  was  not  a  blighted  being,  but  was 
self-poised,  interested  in  his  work. 


24  A   Puritan  Bohemia 

"I  am  glad  it  has  all  ended  sensibly," 
she  said  to  herself.  "  He's  very  satisfac- 
tory, almost  too  satisfactory." 

Then  her  eyes  clouded,  and  she  could 
not  see  the  thumb. 


CHAPTER   IV 

HELEN  WISTAR  had  spent  three  days 
in  finding  appropriate  furniture  for  her 
studio.  She  looked  with  satisfaction  at 
the  sofa-bed,  draped  with  unhemmed  brown 
denim,  the  pine  chiffonnier,  the  huge  screen 
covered  with  burlap.  Three  willow- ware 
cups,  with  plates  to  match,  some  plated 
spoons  and  forks,  and  a  tiny  coffee-pot 
decorated  a  shelf  on  the  wall.  These 
were  for  her  housekeeping. 

"  I'm  so  glad  I'm  here  at  last ! "  she  said. 

She  took  the  "  Fabian  Essays  on  Social- 
ism "  and  Ruskin's  "  Political  Economy  of 
Art"  out  of  her  trunk  and  put  them  on 
the  floor. 

Somebody  knocked. 

The  girl  greeted  her  visitor  with  an 
embarrassed  self-possession,  gazing  with 
wide-opened  brown  eyes  as  she  heard  her 
name. 

"Miss  Bradford?  Oh,  do  you  know,  I 
25 


26  A  Puritan   Bohemia 

have  a  note  of  introduction  to  you  from 
my  old  art  teacher,  Mr.  Stanton  !  " 

She  gracefully  offered  Anne  a  wooden 
kitchen  chair,  and  seated  herself  on  a  pine 
box  under  the  window. 

Anne  was  puzzled.  The  bare  walls  and 
cheap  furniture  wore  the  desolation  of  ap- 
parent poverty.  But  a  gold-mounted  trav- 
elling-bag stood  in  one  corner.  From  the 
box  where  her  hostess  was  sitting,  the 
strong  light  bringing  out  all  the  rich  col- 
ouring of  her  hair  and  lashes  and  curving 
cheeks,  came  the  gleam  of  the  silver  fur- 
nishings of  her  toilet-table. 

"  Yes,"  Anne  was  saying,  "  I  knew  Mr. 
Stanton  when  we  were  children.  We 
went  to  the  same  village  school.  My 
father  was  the  minister.  His  father 
owned  the  mills." 

"  Mr.  Stanton  has  very  remarkable  theo- 
ries about  art,"  observed  the  girl  solemnly. 

"  He  used  to  have  when  I  knew  him," 
Anne  replied,  smiling  in  reminiscence. 
"  What  are  the  new  ones  ? " 

"  He  thinks  that  art  should  not  be  mo- 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  27 

nopolized  by  the  cultured  classes,  but 
should  be  shared  with  common  people." 

"That  isn't  precisely  an  art  theory, 
is  it?" 

"It  is  the  new  art,"  answered  Helen 
with  sudden  dignity,  "the  art  that  is  no 
longer  selfish,  but  that  recognizes  the 
claims  of  human  brotherhood." 

Decidedly  the  child  was  interesting. 
That  little  air  of  self-importance  was 
charming,  taken  in  connection  with  the 
rounded  outlines  of  her  face.  Anne 
watched  her  hostess  unobserved.  Those 
gray  eyes  never  seemed  to  see,  yet  noth- 
ing escaped  them. 

"  She  is  just  a  bewitching  baby,"  said 
the  caller  to  herself,  "  masquerading  in  the 
manner  of  a  woman  of  the  world." 

"  Mr.  Stanton  always  was  an  enthusi- 
ast," she  remarked.  "  He  has  not  changed, 
unless  he  has  found  an  enthusiasm  that 
lasts." 

"  Oh,  Miss  Bradford  !  "  cried  Helen. 
"Don't!" 

A  look  of  swift  intelligence  flashed  into 


28  A   Puritan   Bohemia 

Anne's  face,  but  she  turned  toward  the 
girl  with  her  usual  inscrutable  smile. 

"Mr.  Stanton's  teaching  has  opened  a 
whole  new  world  for  me,"  said  Helen 
bravely.  Her  face  had  grown  severe  over 
Anne  Bradford's  flippancy.  "  I  see  every- 
thing differently  now.  I  never  knew  be- 
fore that  it  is  wrong  to  shut  one's  life  away 
from  poorer  people,  and  to  live  selfishly 
with  one's  own  beautiful  things.  Now,  I 
don't  want  to  keep  any  part  of  my  life,  my 
aim,  or  hope,  or  achievement,  to  myself." 

She  stopped,  excited  and  embarrassed. 

"The  eagerness  of  the  young  to  give 
what  they  have  not  got  is  very  sweet," 
thought  the  guest. 

"  I  am  carrying  out  one  of  Mr.  Stanton's 
suggestions  now,"  said  Helen  shyly.  "  I 
am  going  to  study,  of  course,  but  that  isn't 
what  I  am  most  interested  in.  I  have  come 
here  in  order  to  find  out  all  about  the  lives 
of  poor  artists  who  have  to  struggle  for  an 
education.  I  am  going  to  live  with  abso- 
lutely no  luxuries,  and  am  going  to  try  to 
help  them. 


A  Puritan   Bohemia  29 

"  It  was  hard  to  come,"  she  added.  "My 
family  disapprove.  They  say  that  it  is 
very  foolish  and  very  improper." 

"  Do  they  need  you  ? " 

Red  colour  surged  to  Helen's  cheeks. 

"That's  the  way  everybody  talks  !  "  she 
cried.  "  If  I  were  a  man,  I  should  by  gen- 
eral consent  have  a  right  to  live  my  own 
life.  But  just  because  I  am  a  woman, 
with  an  aim  of  my  own,  nobody  under- 
stands. 

"  You  see,"  she  pleaded,  "  it  is  impossi- 
ble for  me  to  live  out  at  home  my  beliefs. 
It  is  a  Christian  home,  they  say,  and  yet 
my  family  feels  a  great  deal  more  respon- 
sible to  social  convention  than  to  its  faith. 
I  cannot  have  simple  relations  there.  My 
position  in  regard  to  the  maids  in  my 
father's  house  contradicts  my  idea  of  the 
Gospels." 

"  You  are  a  new  kind  of  Saint  Francis," 
said  Anne  with  a  smile.  "  You  seem  to 
have  taken  a  vow  of  poverty  and  dis- 
obedience." 

The   door  was   suddenly  pushed   open. 


30  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

A  little  girl  in  a  calico  gown  and  broken 
straw  hat  appeared. 

"  Why,  Annabel !  "  exclaimed  Miss  Brad- 
ford. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  ma'am,"  said  Anna- 
bel, with  utmost  politeness,  to  the  mistress 
of  the  studio.  "You  said  'Come,'  didn't 
you  ?  My  mamma  wanted  me  to  ask  you 
if  you  have  any  laundry.  The  janitress 
recommended  you." 

"  How  are  your  little  sisters,  Annabel  ? " 
asked  Anne. 

"  Pretty  well,  thank  you.  They've  almost 
got  to  Greenland." 

Annabel  still  panted  from  rapid  walking. 

"I  thought  they  were  going  to  Japan." 

A  troubled  look  came  into  the  child's 
face.  She  touched  Miss  Bradford's  arm 
affectionately ;  then  her  eyes  brightened 
in  triumph. 

"They're  going  to  Greenland  first,  and 
Japan  afterward.  I've  travelled  a  good 
deal  in  my  day,  too,"  said  Annabel,  look- 
ing up  guilelessly  into  Miss  Wistar's  face. 
"  It  runs  in  the  family.  I  went  with  my 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  31 

sailor  uncle  to  Switzerland  and  Greenland 
and  Iceland  and  Africa  and  New  Jersey  !  " 

"  Indeed  ! "    said    Miss  Wistar  gravely. 

"We  went  past  Asia  too,  but  we  didn't 
stop  to  Asia." 

"  That's  Annabel,"  explained  Anne, 
after  the  child  had  gone.  "  Her  real  name 
is  Sarah  Orr.  She  insists  on  Annabel 
because  it  is  romantic.  She  is  the  main- 
stay of  an  entire  family.  It  is  '  personally 
conducted '  by  Annabel.  She's  one  of  the 
most  interesting  characters  in  Bohemia." 

"  Why  does  she  tell  such  queer  tales  ? " 

"That's  genius.  It  is  Annabel's  way 
of  escaping  from  her  hard  world.  Her 
imagination  has  been  fed  by  geography 
and  a  few  stray  books.  She  lies  with  such 
accuracy  and  precision  that  she  would  de- 
ceive the  very  elect.  Sometimes  she  tells 
the  truth,  and  that  complicates  things. 
She  never  lies  about  business  matters." 

Miss  Bradford  lingered  on  the  threshold. 

"  It  is  rather  strange  that  Mr.  Stanton 
should  come  here  to  work  just  now,"  she 
said. 


32  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

"Here!"  cried  Helen. 

"Yes.     Didn't  you  know?" 

"No.     I  thought  he  was  still  at  Eliot." 

Across  the  way  an  open  door  gave  a 
glimpse  of  the  mysterious  recesses  of  a 
studio.  Hidden  behind  the  tall  green 
plants  and  Japanese  screens  was  some 
one  playing  a  violin. 

"  Oh  !  "  exclaimed  the  girl.  "  It  is  glo- 
rious !  Life  is  so  free,  and  so  full  of  things 
to  do ! " 

"  Maybe  the  child  thinks  that  this  is 
altruistic  passion,  but  I  doubt  if  it  is," 
meditated  Anne. 

Suddenly  Helen  turned,  with  a  quiver 
on  her  lips  that  completed  the  conquest 
of  the  older  woman's  heart. 

"  Oh,  Miss  Bradford  !  I  do  so  want  to 
help  !  Do  you  think  I  can  ? " 


CHAPTER   V 

"Then  with   the   knowledge  of  death  as  walking  one 

side  of  me, 
And  the  thought  of  death  close-walking  the  other  side 

of  me, 
And  I  in  the  middle  as  with  companions  and  as  holding 

the  hands  of  companions " 

WALT  WHITMAN. 

FROM  her  windows  Mrs.  Kent  watched 
the  life  in  the  Square  with  something  akin 
to  interest.  Picturesque  models  came  and 
went.  Artists  walked  in  meditation  under 
the  trees.  The  shabby  clientele  of  the 
Charity  Organization  used  it  as  a  thorough- 
fare to  the  great  Charity  Building  on  High 
Street. 

Outside  there  was  only  the  sight  of 
strange  faces,  and  the  sound  of  unknown 
feet ;  within,  the  four  walls  of  her  room, 
and  her  thought  of  the  past.  Memories 
of  old  days  drifted  between  her  and  the 
pamphlets  which  she  persistently  tried  to 
read.  On  autumn  evenings,  when  there 
D  33 


34  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

were  concerts  in  the  Music  Hall,  the  insis- 
tent cry  of  music  set  broken  chords  to 
vibrating  and  destroyed  her  hard-won  calm. 

Mrs.  Kent  had  come  to  the  city,  she 
told  herself,  to  forget  her  sorrow  in  caring 
for  the  poor.  There  were  no  claims  upon 
her  now.  But  she  had  not  come  to  forget. 
She  had  come  to  remember.  She  wanted 
solitude,  where  the  sound  of  familiar  voices 
would  not  break  the  silence  of  her  grief. 
Throughout  the  meaningless  future  she 
would  keep  fast  hold  of  the  meaning  of  the 
past. 

Six  months  of  work  in  the  Charity  Build- 
ing; endless  reports;  endless  committee 
meetings  on  spring  afternoons  and  hot 
summer  mornings ;  then  suddenly  the 
monotony  was  broken  by  the  sight  of  a 
new  face  across  the  table.  Anne  Bradford 
had  begun  to  take  her  dinners  at  the  house 
where  Mrs.  Kent  lived. 

They  were  friends  now.  They  had 
walked  together,  and  had  talked  of  many 
things.  There  was  something  contagious 
in  Anne's  interest  in  life  and  in  people. 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  35 

"  I  called  on  my  new  neighbour  yester- 
day," said  Anne,  as  she  strolled  one  day 
with  Mrs.  Kent  about  the  Square.  "  She's 
charming.  She  has  spent  a  year  in  a 
woman's  college,  and  is  very  wise.  Now 
she's  going  to  make  the  world  all  over." 

"  Don't  laugh  at  her,"  begged  Mrs.  Kent. 

"I'm  not  laughing  at  her.  I  like  her 
immensely.  She  belongs  to  a  wealthy  old 
Connecticut  family.  Their  religious,  social, 
and  economic  views  are  not  to  her  mind. 
Her  criticism  of  her  unenlightened  parents 
rather  stuns  one.  She  has  come  on  a  mis- 
sion to  us,  because  her  conscience  won't 
permit  her  to  stay  at  home.  It  used  to  be 
the  bad  boy  who  ran  away  from  home. 
Now  it's  the  good  girl,  in  search  of  philan- 
thropic adventure." 

Mrs.  Kent  smiled. 

"The  child  is  brimful  of  that  vain,  hun- 
gry, ungenerous  idealism  of  the  young," 
continued  Anne.  "  Heaven  deliver  us  all 
from  the  abstract  wisdom  of  the  utterly 
untried !  " 

"Is  she  an  artist?" 


36  A  Puritan   Bohemia 

"  That  depends  on  your  definition," 
Anne  replied  dryly.  "  She  decided  to  keep 
on  with  art,  after  a  year's  study,  because 
her  instructor  showed  her  how  really  seri- 
ous a  thing  art  is  !  " 

From  these  slight  demands  for  human 
interest,  Mrs.  Kent  turned  with  relief  to 
her  work.  This  was  largely  mechanical. 
She  did  her  duty  with  precision,  and  went 
her  way,  sweet,  sad,  and  remote.  The 
harder  the  work,  the  more  content  she 
was.  She  liked  to  come  home  late  in  the 
afternoon,  so  tired  that  the  old  sense  of 
physical  and  mental  paralysis  which  had 
come  to  her  when  she  first  knew  how 
great  a  grief  was  hers,  returned  and  took 
possession.  That  feeling  carried  her  back 
nearer  and  nearer  to  all  that  she  had  lost. 

Her  imagination  slowly  acquired  a  new 
power.  Through  the  golden  autumn  air 
and  the  misty  rain,  scenes  from  her  former 
life  drifted  back  to  her.  In  the  long 
silences  she  said  over  and  over  the  old 
words,  those  that  she  had  listened  to, 
those  that  she  had  spoken.  She  had 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  37 

forgotten  nothing.  Even  in  the  street  her 
feet  beat  time  to  the  familiar  phrases. 
Playing  both  parts  in  this  dialogue  of 
memory,  she  came  to  feel  that  both  voices 
were  one,  and  she  forgot  to  regret  the  few 
bitter  words  that  had  broken  the  happiness 
of  those  years. 

Grief  turned  often  into  rebellion.  Once 
a  glimpse  of  Anne  Bradford  and  Miss  Wis- 
tar  walking  together  under  the  falling 
leaves  brought  hot  tears  to  Mrs.  Kent's 
eyes.  It  was  like  looking  from  the  end 
of  life  down  a  long  vista,  into  the  hope 
and  freshness  of  life's  beginning.  For  her 
life  was  over,  yet  she  was  still  so  young. 

"Please,  will  you  come  to  the  studio 
for  a  Bohemian  supper  ? "  Anne  Bradford 
begged  one  day.  "And  will  you  play 
chaperon  ? " 

"  Chaperon  ? " 

"  For  Miss  Wistar.  An  old  playmate 
of  mine  has  turned  out  to  be  her  art- 
teacher.  I  wish  to  invite  him  to  meet 
her." 

Mrs.  Kent   consented  with    reluctance. 


38  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

Perhaps  it  was  her  duty.  Yet  this  was 
hard  for  one  who  asked  only  that  she 
might  walk  on  softly  in  the  bitterness  of 
her  soul,  guarding  for  herself  the  hush 
that  lies  about  new-made  graves. 

She  had  grown  almost  content,  living  in 
the  constant  presence  of  the  dead.  Now 
a  sudden  change  of  work  disturbed  her. 
She  was  asked  to  leave  her  books,  and  to 
do  district  visiting  in  the  slums.  The 
swarming  people  irritated  her.  The  sights 
and  sounds  made  her  ill.  She  could  not 
really  care,  she  said  to  herself,  about  the 
wretched  people  she  was  trying  to  serve. 
Yet  the  thought  of  them  troubled  her 
dreams.  At  night  their  faces  followed 
her  on  her  journey  to  the  past.  Soiled 
fingers  seemed  to  clutch  her  gown  as  she 
walked  the  old,  familiar  ways. 

She  went  on  in  a  maze.  That  old  ex- 
pectation of  finding  on  the  other  side  of 
each  shut  door  the  face  she  loved  went 
with  her  to  the  slums.  But  the  open 
doors  revealed  only  dirt,  misery,  sin. 
Again  and  again  the  rebellious  cry  arose. 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  39 

The  soul  she  loved  had  heaven ;  and 
she  ?  —  the  blank  brick  walls,  the  long, 
muddy  walks,  the  loathsome  faces. 

One  wicked  old  woman  with  a  passion 
for  drink,  two  Italians  out  of  work,  and 
a  family  of  motherless  children  were  given 
to  her  care. 

One  day  in  late  October  Mrs.  Kent 
made  her  usual  round  of  visits.  It  was 
her  birthday.  She  found  that  the  old 
woman  had  turned  her  daughter  out  of 
doors. 

The  visitor  walked  slowly  away,  looking 
back  toward  the  window  of  the  basement 
room. 

"My  birthday  gift,"  she  said,  "is  a 
share  in  another's  sin." 


CHAPTER   VI 

A  SUMMER  fragrance  drifted  through 
Anne  Bradford's  studio  from  the  cedar 
branches  nailed  to  the  wall  and  the  pine 
cones  burning  in  the  fireplace.  The  light 
of  the  fire  and  of  the  hanging  lamp  made 
curious  effects  in  the  great  apartment. 
Spaces  among  the  rafters  were  shadowy 
still.  A  Winged  Victory,  standing  above 
a  low  partition  that  shut  off  another 
room,  shone  out  in  bold  relief  against  the 
darkness. 

It  was  odd  and  picturesque,  with  its 
irregular  nooks  and  angles  and  its  gallery 
on  the  east,  reached  by  a  winding  stair- 
way. Here  two  windows  looked  out  upon 
the  Square.  An  Indian  hammock  hung 
in  one  corner  of  the  room.  In  another 
was  a  low  divan,  covered  with  a  Bagdad 
curtain.  The  dull  reds  and  olives  of  rugs 
and  portieres  were  relieved  by  a  single  bit 
of  vivid  colour,  the  scarlet  robe  of  a  cardinal 
in  a  picture  on  the  easel. 
4o 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  41 

The  hostess  was  sitting  by  a  white- 
fringed  table,  making  coffee  in  a  Turkish 
coffee-pot.  On  the  wall,  just  above  the 
gleaming  glass  and  silver,  hung  a  mask 
of  Dante.  The  sneering  face  of  a  Notre 
Dame  devil  looked  down  from  the  corner. 

"My  conclusion  is,"  Howard  Stanton 
was  remarking,  "  that,  unless  I  can  make 
my  art  express  my  best  thought  about  life, 
I  must  abandon  my  art.  And  the  sum 
and  substance  of  that  thought  is  this : 
that  life  is  just  a  chance  to  enter  into 
other  people's  lives  and  help  develop 
them." 

His  face  wore  an  expression  unneces- 
sarily heroic.  Helen  Wistar  was  looking 
at  him  with  the  old,  rapt  expression  of 
the  lecture-room.  He  always  took  him- 
self seriously  when  she  was  near. 

"Nobody  must  speak  for  a  minute," 
begged  Anne,  "or  I  shall  spill  the  water." 

She  slowly  poured  the  coffee  into  tiny 
Sevres  cups  and  gave  the  tray  to  Anna- 
bel, who  had  just  removed  the  salad  plates 
and  was  anxiously  waiting.  Annabel  wore 


42  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

her  Sunday  gown  of  blue  nun's  veiling. 
The  unwonted  responsibilities  of  her 
present  task  had  deepened  her  care-worn 
expression. 

"  Now  please,"  said  Miss  Bradford,  com- 
ing back  to  the  fire,  "  what  were  you  talk- 
ing about  ? " 

"Oh,  about  living,"  answered  Mrs. 
Kent.  She  was  sitting  in  an  old-fashioned 
arm-chair,  the  light  falling  softly  on  her 
smooth  pale  hair. 

"Living?  Is  that  all?"  asked  Anne 
with  a  laugh.  "  Life's  just  a  chance  to 
watch  other  people's  lives  and  put  down 
what  you  see.  It  is  a  stepping-stone  to 
art." 

"Isn't  life,"  said  Mrs.  Kent  slowly, 
"simply  a  chance  to  live?" 

She  said  "live,"  but  she  meant  "love." 

Helen  looked  up  from  her  seat  on  the 
divan  and  flushed  slightly.  Mr.  Stanton 
was  the  only  person  who  made  her  feel  shy. 

"  I  wonder,"  she  said,  "  why  one  can't 
do  one's  work,  and  help  people,  and  live 
besides  ? " 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  43 

"  O  child,  the  gifts  of  the  gods  are  more 
precious  than  that,"  cried  Anne.  "Wait 
until  you  find  yourself  rendering  thanks 
for  a  fragment  of  any  one  of  these  things." 

"Or  a  memory,"  said  Mrs.  Kent,  so 
softly  that  no  one  heard. 

Here  Miserere  crawled  to  Mr.  Stanton's 
feet. 

"Tell  me  your  notions  about  life, 
Tabby,"  said  the  young  man,  picking  the 
animal  up. 

"Tabby!"  exclaimed  Anne  with  indig- 
nation. "  His  name  is  Miserere.  He  is 
a  fin-de-sihle  cat,  with  a  point  of  view. 
Miserere  is  the  only  pessimist  in  Bohemia. 
Life  for  him  is  a  long  pursuit  of  good 
things  to  eat,  and  he's  unhappy  because 
he  can't  have  too  many." 

"Do  you  call  this  Bohemia?"  asked 
Howard.  "Where's  the  'old  hat  stop- 
ping a  chink  in  the  roof '  ?  The  real 
thing  has  none  of  this  elegance." 

"  It  is  Bohemia.  It  all  began,  my  share 
of  it  at  least,  with  that."  Anne  held  up 
her  white  and  gold  cup.  "  I  went  out  to 


44  A   Puritan  Bohemia 

Saint  Cloud  one  day  on  one  of  the  little 
steamers,  les  hirondelles.  I  walked  down 
the  Alice  du  Chateau  to  Sevres  and 
bought  this  cup.  And  then  and  there  I 
planned  my  domestic  life.  Oh  don't  speak 
of  Paris !  It  makes  me  homesick.  I  can 
see  the  leaf-shadows  on  those  tree-trunks 
now." 

Sitting  by  the  fire  they  discussed  many 
things,  art,  philanthropy,  Paris,  hopes,  and 
aims.  They  spoke  with  the  tremendous 
earnestness  of  those  who  consider  their 
abstract  views  of  value  ;  they  listened  with 
eager  interest  to  one  another's  opinions. 
They  had  talked  themselves  sleepy  and 
ambitious  when  Mrs.  Kent  begged  to 
know  more  of  Mr.  Stanton's  theory. 

"It  is  very  simple,"  he  replied,  "only 
this,  that  art  must  learn  to  reflect  the 
great  teaching  of  the  age,  the  reality  of 
human  brotherhood.  It  can  no  longer 
stand  aloof,  the  plaything  of  a  favoured 
few.  Its  selfishness  is  self-destruction. 
To  my  mind  its  only  fortune  lies  in  iden- 
tifying itself  with  common  life." 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  45 

He  scrutinized  the  faces  of  the  two  girls. 
It  had  never  occurred  to  him  before  that 
Miss  Wistar  was  so  beautiful.  She  was 
thinking,  as  she  had  often  thought,  that 
he  looked  like  some  old,  fair-haired  Saxon 
hero. 

He  went  on  with  growing  vehemence, 
vainly  trying  to  kindle  in  Anne's  eyes  the 
light  that  glowed  in  Helen's.  His  boyish 
manner  had  disappeared. 

"  This  must  be  his  academic  air,"  thought 
Anne  mournfully.  "  He  is  almost  pom- 
pous. Yet  he  is  ridiculously  like  himself 
at  ten.  That  is  partly  because  of  the  cleft 
in  his  chin." 

The  art  of  to-day  has  a  threefold  mis- 
sion, he  was  saying.  Its  products  must 
be  shared  with  the  people ;  art  schools 
must  be  established  to  train  the  children 
of  the  poor,  and  to  discover  latent  talent 
that  now  goes  to  waste ;  and  the  lives  of 
the  poor  must  be  studied  seriously. 

"  It  is  time  for  the  Dresden  china  inter- 
pretation of  human  life  to  disappear.  Art 
must  enter  the  arena.  It  must  partake  of 


46  A   Puritan   Bohemia 

human  struggle.  It  must  show  the  beauty 
and  the  sadness,  the  hardship  and  the 
pathos,  of  common  people's  lives." 

"  Did  you  remark  that  you  are  going  to 
say  all  this  in  your  pictures  ? "  asked  Anne. 

"  I  am  going  to  try." 

"  People's  lives  are  hard  to  understand," 
said  Mrs.  Kent  slowly.  "How  can  you  find 
out  really  about  the  poor  ? " 

"  By  going  to  live  with  them,  sharing 
their  conditions,"  he  answered.  "There 
is  no  other  way.  It  is  a  problem,  but  the 
problem  is  all  we  have  left." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  asked  Anne. 

"  I  mean  that  the  century  has  taken 
away  our  old  illusions.  The  only  thing 
we've  got  is  a  chance  to  make  life  more 
comfortable  for  other  people." 

"  The  century  hasn't  taken  away  my 
palette  and  brushes,"  murmured  Anne. 
"  I  don't  feel  quite  lost  while  I  have 
them.  This  seems  like  old  times.  When 
you  were  eight,  you  were  going  to  be  a 
missionary.  Then  you  were  artist,  states- 
man, and  great  actor  by  turns." 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  47 

"Where  is  Annabel  ? "  asked  Mrs.  Kent. 
"She  ought  to  go  home.  It  is  growing 
late." 

Annabel,  forgotten,  had  been  amusing 
herself  behind  the  screen  with  a  scrap  of 
drawing  paper  and  a  yellow  crayon.  Dis- 
covered, she  held  up  her  sketch. 

"  Ain't  that  a  nice  picture  ? "  she  de- 
manded. 

She  had  drawn,  in  wavering  lines,  a  high 
stone  wall,  where  a  cat  was  sitting,  gazing 
at  the  setting  sun.  The  cat's  whiskers  and 
the  sun's  fierce  rays  met. 

"  There's  a  great  deal  of  literature  in 
that,"  commented  Howard  Stanton,  "and 
it's  modern,  quite  in  the  poster  style." 

"  It  is  very  much  in  your  line,"  sug- 
gested Anne.  "  You  ought  to  teach 
Annabel.  I  think  that  she  would  be  a 
disciple." 

"  I  should  like  to,"  replied  the  young 
man.  "  Do  you  want  to  learn  to  draw, 
Annabel  ? " 

"  Yes,  please,"  responded  the  child. 

"  Now  we  shall  see,"  said  Anne  gayly, 


48  A   Puritan  Bohemia 

"  how  Mr.  Stanton  carries  out  his  theories 
about  the  discovery  of  latent  talent.  Run 
home,  Annabel." 

Here  somebody  put  more  pine  cones 
upon  the  fire,  and  the  subject  of  conver- 
sation shifted  to  pine  cones. 


CHAPTER  VII 

HELEN  WISTAR  put  away  her  pretty 
gowns,  and  sent  home  for  a  hat  that  was 
three  years  old.  An  inexperienced  seam- 
stress made  her  an  unbecoming  gray  serge 
dress.  Helen  looked  down  at  her  clumsily 
fashioned  skirt  as  a  martyr  might  look  at 
his  flames.  It  meant  fulfilment  of  her 
mission,  but  it  hurt. 

She  practised  the  severest  economy, 
even  refusing  herself  sufficient  food,  in 
order  to  taste  the  sweets  of  poverty.  The 
money  thus  saved  —  for  Helen  had  money 
in  plenty,  she  confessed  to  herself  with 
reluctance  —  was  to  be  devoted  to  strug- 
gling women.  But  the  struggling  women 
were  hard  to  find.  They  looked  exasper- 
atingly  well  cared  for  and  even  happy,  the 
teachers,  artists,  doctors,  and  musicians 
who  passed  through  the  Square  with  their 
little  black  bags.  Helen  was  grieved  by 
their  self-sufficiency.  She  was  ready  to 
E  49 


50  A   Puritan  Bohemia 

carry  the  burden  of  the  world,  but  she 
could  not  find  it. 

Often  the  sight  of  black-clad  matrons 
on  the  street,  a  glimpse  of  lace  curtains 
in  drawing-room  windows,  or  the  fragrance 
of  tea  in  her  own  studio,  brought  back  a 
sudden  sense  of. home.  Remorse  for  her 
desertion  always  mingled  with  thankfulness 
for  her  escape. 

"  I  can  never  go  back,"  she  said  often 
to  herself,  "  to  waste  my  days  in  planning 
clothes  and  making  formal  calls." 

Bravely  persisting  in  her  search  for 
service,  she  joined  the  Women's  League. 
She  employed  every  pretext  for  making 
the  acquaintance  of  the  artists  in  the 
building,  and,  in  a  fit  of  renunciation,  she 
gave  her  sealskin  cape  to  Annabel. 

Annabel  had  become  a  familiar  figure 
in  her  world.  One  afternoon,  when  the 
three  friends  were  talking  in  Anne  Brad- 
ford's studio,  the  child  entered  and  put 
down  her  bundle  with  .an  air  of  great  im- 
portance. 

"  I  can't  bring  your  laundry  on  Saturday 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  51 

nights  any  longer,  Miss  Bradford.  Will 
you  mind  if  I  bring  it  on  Friday  ? " 

"  Not  in  the  least." 

Annabel  seated  herself  in  the  largest 
chair  in  the  studio  and  folded  her  hands. 

"  I'm  a-going  to  a  art  school.  It's  Mr. 
Stanton.  Ain't  he  lovely  ?  I'm  going  to 
be  a  artist.  I  can  make  beautiful  pictures 
now,  and  I  ain't  been  at  all." 

The  child  was  excited.  Three  pairs  of 
eyes  were  looking  at  her,  and  her  dramatic 
instinct  rose  to  the  occasion. 

She  told  them  how  Mr.  Stanton  had 
appeared  one  morning  at  her  mother's 
door ;  how  he  had  said  that  she,  Annabel, 
had  undoubted  talent  for  art  and  ought 
to  be  sent  to  school.  Finally  he  had 
offered  to  come  to  board  with  Mrs.  Orr, 
thus  enabling  her  to  pay  for  Annabel's 
tuition. 

"  So  he's  coming  next  week  Monday  at 
nine  o'clock,"  said  Annabel  impressively. 
"  He's  a-going  to  have  the  front  room  and 
three  chairs  and  a  table." 

"Annabel  has  a  great  deal  of  manner, 


52  A  Puritan   Bohemia 

hasn't  she?"  said  Mrs.  Kent  with  a  smile, 
when  the  child  had  gone. 

"  '  All  the  repose  that  stamps  the  caste 
of  Vere  de  Vere/ "  Anne  replied.  "  A 
queen  might  envy  Annabel's  savoir  faire  ; 
but  a  queen  should  not  be  blamed  for 
not  having  it.  She  could  never  have 
Annabel's  opportunity  for  knowing  the 
world." 

"  Isn't  that  rather  fine  in  Mr.  Stanton  ?  " 
said  Helen. 

"  Why,  you  didn't  believe  that,  did  you  ? " 
cried  Anne.  "That  is  one  of  Annabel's 
yarns.  Next  time  she  will  tell  you  what 
Mr.  Stanton  says  and  what  he  eats.  By 
the  next  time  she  will  have  forgotten  it 
entirely." 

"But  the  child  spoke  so  earnestly,"  re- 
monstrated Mrs.  Kent. 

"The  earnestness  is  always  in  direct  pro- 
portion to  the  size  of  her  fiction,"  said 
Anne.  "I  could  almost  have  believed 
her  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  three  chairs 
and  the  table.  Annabel  is  especially  exact 
when  she  lies." 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  53 

"  Anyway,  it  would  be  like  Mr.  Stanton," 
maintained  Helen. 

"  It  would  be  like  him  to  plan  to  do  it," 
corrected  Anne.  "  I  used  to  call  him 
'  John-a-Dreams.'  " 

"That  isn't  fair!"  cried  Helen  hotly. 
"  I  don't  see  how  any  one  could  try  harder 
to  carry  out  his  ideas." 

"  He  has  changed  a  little,"  Anne  ad- 
mitted. "  Something  has  given  focus  to 
his  energy." 

"Why  is  he  interested  in  the  poor?" 
asked  Mrs.  Kent. 

"  He  said  one  day  last  winter,"  answered 
Helen,  growing  rather  red,  "that  some 
rather  bitter  experience  had  shown  him 
the  selfishness  of  trying  to  get  the  things 
you  want,  and  had  made  him  think  about 
the  things  that  other  people  want." 

"Did  he  say  that?"  asked  Anne.  It 
was  her  turn  to  flush.  "  Oh,  Mr.  Stanton 
is  very  modern,"  she  said  carelessly.  "  He 
is  blase  about  some  things,  thoroughly  dis- 
illusioned, but  busy  making  new  illusions 
as  fast  as  possible." 


54  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

Helen  slipped  away.  The  conversation 
was  not  to  her  mind. 

Mrs.  Kent  looked  troubled.  "  There  is 
something  morbid  in  that  girl's  intensity," 
she  said.  "  She  is  under  strong  emotional 
tension  all  the  time." 

"  Isn't  there  a  little  dash  of  longing  for 
excitement  in  Helen's  yearning  to  do 
good  ? "  asked  Anne.  "  The  Lord  made 
her  for  great  crises,  but  unkindly  forgot 
to  make  any  crises  for  her." 

"  You  are  all  like  that,"  answered  Mrs. 
Kent  demurely.  "  I  don't  understand  the 
mental  and  moral  and  spiritual  restlessness 
of  the  young  of  to-day.  Perhaps  it  is  only 
the  uneasiness  of  those  who  have  not  yet 
found  their  places  in  the  ranks.  You  go 
about  with  an  expectant  air,  as  if  imagin- 
ing that  some  ineffable  thought  or  experi- 
ence will  tell  you  the  next  minute  all  there 
is  to  know." 

Anne  laughed. 

"  We  aren't  all  quite  so  much  at  sea  as 
Helen  is.  She  has  been  developed  a  little 
on  too  many  sides.  Did  the  woman's  col- 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  55 

lege  do  that  ?  She  is  impotent  because  of 
too  many  good  but  contradictory  ideas. 
She  wishes  to  '  amount  to  something,'  but 
finds  it  hard  to  decide  what  to  do.  Just 
think,"  Anne's  gray  eyes  twinkled,  "of 
wanting  to  amount  to  something  without 
knowing  what  you  want  to  amount  to  ! " 

Outside,  in  the  Square,  Helen  was  cool- 
ing her  cheeks  in  a  dense  fog.  It  was  all 
so  baffling !  If  she  could  only  tell  what 
to  do !  Here,  as  if  in  answer  to  her  ques- 
tion, Mr.  Stanton  appeared. 

"  I  was  trying  to  find  you,"  he  said, 
turning  to  walk  with  her.  "  I  have  a  great 
favour  to  ask." 

The  girl's  eyes  shone. 

"  I  am  planning  a  picture.  It  is  my  first 
serious  attempt  to  give  my  message  to  the 
world.  I  want  to  ask  you,  if  I  dare,  to 
pose  as  the  chief  figure  in  it.  Miss  Brad- 
ford has  kindly  consented  to  let  me  do  the 
work  in  her  studio." 

"  It  will  be  a  very  great  pleasure,"  said 
Helen.  "  I  shall  feel  that  I  am  helping." 

Howard  looked  down  at  the  girl.     An 


56  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

indefinable  change  had  come  over  her  with 
the  putting  on  of  her  altruistic  clothes. 

"  Aren't  you  well  ? "  he  asked  anxiously. 

"  Perfectly." 

They  walked  round  and  round  the 
Square.  Moisture  clung  in  little  beads  to 
their  hair  and  their  clothing,  but  they  did 
not  notice.  Mr.  Stanton  outlined  his  plans 
for  the  future.  It  was  sweet  to  have  his 
ardent  belief  in  his  theories  confirmed  by 
Helen's  ardent  belief  in  him.  He  was  go- 
ing to  start  a  course  of  lectures  on  art  for 
workingmen,  and  a  night  school  for  factory 
girls. 

As  he  talked,  the  sound  of  bells  floated 
up  to  them  from  the  city  buried  in  mist. 
Helen's  courage  came  back  to  her  in  great 
throbs. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

MR.  STANTON'S  great  picture  was  begun. 
In  one  corner  of  Anne  Bradford's  studio 
Helen  posed  for  Art,  asleep.  The  picture 
was  to  be  symbolic.  It  was  the  old  myth 
of  the  Sleeping  Beauty  worked  over  with 
a  modern  interpretation.  A  lovely  woman, 
dreaming,  with  half-shut  eyes :  that  was 
Art.  A  ragged  figure  creeping  up  and 
putting  a  wasted  hand  through  the  hedge 
of  thorn :  that  was  Need.  The  sleeper 
was  to  be  awakened,  not  by  the  old-fash- 
ioned lover's  kiss,  but  by  a  cry  for  the 
new,  better,  all-embracing  love,  the  love  of 
human  kind. 

"  I  simply  can't  do  my  work  for  watch- 
ing you,"  said  Anne  at  the  first  sitting. 
"  I  am  eager  to  see  how  you  are  going  to 
paint  all  those  ideas  about  art  and  the 
people." 

"  I  am  not  going  to  paint.     I  am  going 
to  suggest,"  answered  Howard. 
.57 


58  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

"But  you  are  working  with  paint," 
remonstrated  Anne.  "  Whatever  you  do 
must  be  done  with  that.  How  can  you 
paint  philosophy  ? " 

The  work  went  on  while  autumn  drifted 
into  late  November.  Now  and  then  dead 
leaves  were  blown  into  the  studio  through 
the  open  skylight.  Sometimes  rain  fell  on 
the  roof.  Mrs.  Kent,  embroidering  by  the 
fire,  listened,  in  awe  tempered  with  amuse- 
ment, to  fierce  debates  concerning  art  and 
life.  Her  three  young  friends  played  too 
deftly  with  notions  concerning  human  ex- 
istence, she  sometimes  thought.  They 
were  "wise  because  until  now  nothing  had 
happened  to  them." 

Helen  Wistar  drank  in  eagerly  all  her 
master's  teaching.  As  he  worked  he  talked 
much  about  merging  one's  life  in  the  life 
of  the  whole.  It  was  well  for  the  girl  that 
her  eyes  were  closed,  otherwise  Howard 
might  have  grown  to  understand  the  look 
in  them.  Only  Anne  understood  that  look. 
To  these  remarks  Anne  listened  with 
an  angry  sense  of  her  own  limitations. 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  59 

"I  never  heard  so  many  sublime  ideas 
in  my  life,"  she  said  mournfully  to  herself 
one  day.  "  People  as  good  as  that  are  no 
company  for  me." 

"  Speaking  of  sharing  the  hardships  of 
the  poor,"  she  asked  suddenly,  "did  you 
go  to  live  with  Mrs.  Orr,  or  did  Annabel 
make  that  story  up  ?  " 

"No.  It  is  true,"  answered  the  young 
man,  reddening  a  little. 

"I  knew  it !  "  cried  Helen  triumphantly. 
Howard  failed  to  see  the  sudden  beauty 
of  her  wide-opened  eyes. 

"Are  you  comfortable?"  asked  Mrs. 
Kent  anxiously. 

"  Not  luxuriously  comfortable,"  answered 
Howard  with  a  laugh.  "  I  rather  think 
that  my  pillows  are  filled  with  green  apples. 
And  the  table  —  well,  unlike  Dives,  we  do 
not  fare  sumptuously  every  day.  The 
toast  is  always  cold,  for  instance." 

"You  are  a  new  kind  of  hero,  aren't 
you,"  murmured  Anne,  "ready  to  eat  cold 
toast  for  the  good  of  the  masses." 

"The    children    are    very   satisfactory, 


60  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

however.  You  are  going  to  see  Anna- 
bel immortalized  in  allegory  on  the  walls 
of  the  City  Hall.  They  delight  in  pos- 
ing. The  little  brother  makes  a  famous 
cherub." 

The  young  impressionist  worked  rapidly. 
Anne  almost  held  her  breath  as  she  watched 
his  sweeping  strokes.  His  touch  was  firm, 
despite  his  eagerness.  The  drawing  had 
been  finished ;  the  colour  was  being  sketched 
in.  Grass  and  trees  were  violet.  That 
was  necessary  to  give  the  true  values. 
The  sky  was  pale  green.  Art's  lovely 
hair,  its  auburn  shades  brightened  to  red, 
—  for  that  was  what  it  meant  to  him,  the 
artist  said,  —  fell  over  the  side  of  the  couch 
and  curled  round  one  of  the  branches  of 
the  hedge  of  thorn.  The  light  effects  were 
mystic,  wonderful. 

The  two  artists  ceased  to  quarrel  over 
beauty,  line,  and  colour.  They  were  ab- 
sorbed in  considering  the  intellectual  val- 
ues of  their  work. 

"So  this  is  the  way,"  said  Anne  one 
afternoon,  deserting  her  own  easel,  "in 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  61 

which  you  paint  the  hardship  and  the  sad- 
ness and  the  pathos  of  common  people's 
lives." 

"This  is  the  way  in  which  I  make  a 
symbol  of  it.  I  am  not  painting  a  single 
object.  My  aim  is  broader  than  that. 
The  merely  individual  is  eliminated  for  the 
sake  of  the  typical.  That  figure  embodies 
a  truth " 

''Not  anatomical  truth,"  said  Anne 
dryly. 

"Frankly,  not  anatomical  truth." 

"Wouldn't  it  be  just  as  symbolic  if  Art 
looked  able  to  stand  up,  if  she  chose  ? " 

"That  isn't  the  point,"  answered  How- 
ard. "  She  has  something  else  to  do. 
She  clothes  as  with  a  garment  a  spiritual 
verity." 

"  I'd  rather  paint  the  things  I  see  than 
the  things  I  dream,"  said  Anne  sturdily. 

"I  prefer  to  paint  the  things  I  both  see 
and  dream,"  retorted  Howard.  "The  art- 
ist cannot  afford  to  let  brute  fact  master 
him.  Art  is  no  servile  copyist.  Her  own 
divine  idea  must  shape  her  work." 


62  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

"  Of  course !  That  is  one  of  the  com- 
monplaces of  the  studio.  But  there  ought 
to  be  some  correspondence  between  out- 
ward fact  and  one's  inner  sense  of  things. 
You  can't  spin  truth  wholly  out  of  your 
own  brain.  I  am  sure  that  this  attempt  to 
paint  abstractions  is  only  a  fad.  You  will 
outgrow  it." 

Mrs.  Kent  smiled.  She  liked  the  way 
in  which  the  two  friends  patronized  each 
other.  Helen  started  in  dismay. 

An  hour  passed.  Again  Anne's  voice 
broke  the  silence. 

"  Isn't  that  colouring  an  impertinence 
to  nature  ?  Do  I  bother  you  ?  Am  I  a 
nuisance  ? " 

"Rather." 

"  I  wish  to  learn,"  she  remarked  meekly. 

"You  are  an  exceedingly  belligerent 
pupil." 

"I'll  go  away  in  a  minute.  I  just  want 
to  ask  why  you  degrade  part  of  nature  as 
unworthy  of  your  work.  It  all  seems  to 
me  worth  reproducing  as  perfectly  as  pos- 
sible—  the  little  common  things  that  the 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  63 

unenlightened  do  not  see.  Every  trace  of 
human  expression  is  sacred  to  me." 

"  I  simply  go  one  step  further.  You 
copy  facts,  you  say.  I  try  to  distill  from 
facts  an  inner  meaning.  I  try  to  express 
my  sense  of  things.  It  is  my  reaching  out 
after  the  unattainable,  la  verite  vmie." 

"Nobody,"  said  Anne  solemnly,  "has 
any  right  to  know  the  abstract  meanings 
of  things  until  he  has  grasped  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  concrete." 

"  But  your  realist,  in  copying  the  con- 
crete, fails  to  represent  any  thought  of  his 
own." 

"Perhaps,"  suggested  Anne,  "he  thinks 
that  he  is  putting  down  fragments  of  a 
larger  thought  than  his  own.  He  may  be 
humble  enough  to  realize  that  he  hasn't 
grasped  all  truth.  In  doing  that  unpre- 
tentious work  doesn't  he  try  to  suggest 
the  worth  and  the  mystery  of  every  mean- 
est fact  of  life?" 

"  That  work  lacks  significance.  It  gives 
you  no  chance  to  express  your  idea  of  the 
meaning  of  things." 


64  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

"And  yours  lacks  reverence,"  retorted 
Anne.  "  It  gives  you  no  opportunity  to 
express  a  belief  in  the  Creator's  meaning 
in  things." 

Howard  sighed  in  mock  despair. 

"  Miss  Wistar  is  the  only  person  who 
understands  me,"  he  said,  with  a  look  that 
brought  hot  blood  to  the  girl's  cheeks. 
"  If  my  work  amounts  to  anything  it  will 
all  be  due  to  her." 


CHAPTER   IX 

"  DON'T,  please,"  begged  Anne  Bradford. 

Her  companion  was  silent.  A  moment 
before  he  had  been  eloquent. 

"You  are  going  to  say,  as  you  did  four 
years  ago,  that  you  need  me,  that  your 
art  would  be  better  for  my  companionship, 
and  that  I  ought  to  sacrifice  my  work  to 
yours." 

Her  voice,  which  she  so  wanted  to  be 
firm,  choked  a  little.  There  was  a  pause, 
and  still  Howard  Stanton  said  nothing. 

"  Your  art  doesn't  need  me  so  much  as 
my  own  art  needs  me !  "  she  cried  pas- 
sionately. 

"Nannie,"  said  the  young  man,  "haven't 
you  found  out  yet  that  your  art  needs  me  ? " 

"  No  indeed.  You  would  ruin  it.  You 
would  make  me  think  about  other  people, 
and  selfishness  is  the  soul  of  my  art.  A 
very  little  of  the  brotherhood  of  man  would 
spoil  my  pictures  entirely." 
F  65 


66  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

It  was  a  great  relief  to  be  able  to 
laugh. 

They  were  standing  in  the  reception- 
room  of  the  studio  building,  close  by  the 
Van  Dyck  portrait. 

"  Won't  you  sit  down  ? "  asked  the  guest 
politely. 

"  I  am  very  busy  this  afternoon,"  sug- 
gested the  hostess. 

"That's  too  bad,"  said  Howard,  drawing 
a  chair  out  for  her.  "  I  really  must  see 
you.  You  haven't  given  me  a  chance  to 
talk  with  you  alone  since  I  came." 

Anne  looked  industriously  out  of  the 
window.  There  was  a  red  Indian-summer 
haze  in  the  air.  Down  High  Street  the 
last  rays  of  the  sun  shone  on  the  long 
rows  of  windows  and  on  the  scarlet  vines 
that  covered  the  houses.  Branches  of 
naked  elm  trees  stood  out  gray  against  the 
glow  in  the  west. 

"  I  thought  you  had  changed  your 
mind,"  said  Anne. 

"  Did  you  indeed  ?  Then  why  have  you 
taken  such  pains  to  avoid  me  ? "  he  an- 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  67 

swered.     "  It   unfortunately  isn't   a  ques- 
tion of  changing  my  mind." 

"You  promised  four  years  ago  not  to 
follow  me." 

"  I  didn't  follow.  I  came  here  to  design 
frescoes.  Fate,  not  I,  broke  that  promise." 

The  little  artist  leaned  .back  in  the  great 
leather-cushioned  chair.  Her  hands  were 
clasped  nervously  in  her  lap.  Her  face 
was  puzzled. 

"  I  don't  see  why  you  care  for  me  in 
that  way,"  she  said  mournfully.  "I'm  an 
ugly,  strong-minded  old  maid  of  thirty. 
I'm  not  the  kind  of  person  to  fall  in  love 
with.  I'm  the  kind  of  person  who  works." 

"You  aren't  thirty.  You  were  twenty- 
seven  on  the  second  day  of  April.  And 
I  didn't  fall  in  love  with  you.  I  have 
loved  you  ever  since  I  can  remember,  — 
at  five,  ten,  sixteen,  and  ever  since.  My 
love  for  you  is  one  of  the  constants  in  my 
character." 

He  drew  from  his  pocket  a  tiny  photo- 
graph. It  was  the  thin,  eager  face  of  a 
little  girl  of  thirteen. 


68  A   Puritan  Bohemia 

"Let  me  see  it!"  cried  Anne.  "It 
looks  hungry  and  fierce.  What  big  eyes 
it  has  !  It  is  a  kind  of  composite  of  Little 
Red  Riding  Hood  and  the  wolf." 

She  gave  it  back. 

"  I  ought  to  have  taken  that  away  from 
you,"  she  said  lightly.  "The  young 
woman  in  fiction  always  gets  her  picture 
back  and  burns  it." 

"We're  not  in  fiction,"  sighed  the  young 
man.  "  I  sometimes  wish  we  were.  No, 
you  can't  have  it,  Nannie.  Tell  me :  is 
there  anything  except  your  theory  about 
work  that  stands  between  us  ?  " 

"  Isn't  that  enough  ?  " 

"  Why  you  think  you  can  work  better 
for  a  maimed  and  incomplete  life  I  don't 
see  !  "  he  exclaimed.  "  A  man  doesn't 
make  up  his  mind  that  he  can't  live  his 
life  and  do  his  work  too.  He  knows  that 
his  life  will  be  better  for  the  work,  and 
his  work  for  the  living." 

He  saw  his  advantage  and  pursued  it. 

"  I  never  asked  you  to  give  up  your  art. 
I  care  too  much  about  you  to  want  you  to 


A   Puritan   Bohemia  69 

be  my  wife  if  I  did  not  think  that  your 
work  would  be  all  the  better  for  your  com- 
ing to  me.  Looking  at  it  impersonally  it 
seems  to  me  that  you  are  making  a  great 
mistake." 

"  It  isn't  very  modest  in  you  to  say  so," 
murmured  Anne,  turning  away  from  the 
steady  gaze  of  his  blue  eyes.  "  No,  I  can- 
not do  it.  I  haven't  any  feelings.  I  have 
only  a  Puritan  conscience  that  has  turned 
its  attention  to  art." 

"You  are  attempting,"  he  continued, 
"to  interpret  human  life  by  painting  pict- 
ures of  faces.  How  can  you  understand 
when  you  know  so  little  about  life  ?  You 
have  plenty  of  theory.  You  know  how 
they  paint  portraits  in  Paris,  and  how  they 
paint  them  in  New  York.  But  you  know 
little  of  the  experience  that  makes  faces 
worth  painting.  A  human  face  is  a  record 
of  a  whole  life.  How  can  you  read  there 
the  traces  of  love  and  joy  and  sorrow  until 
you  know  what  love  and  joy  and  sorrow 
are  ? " 

"  I'll  be  a  symbolist,"  said   Anne   mis- 


70  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

chievously.  "  Then  the  less  I  know  about 
human  expression  the  better." 

He  did  not  listen. 

"  You  know  that  this  is  true.  If  you 
don't  you  will  find  it  out  as  you  grow 
older.  Then  why  won't  you  come  and 
learn  your  art  by  living  ?  " 

The  tone  angered  her. 

"  The  general  and  the  particular  aren't 
quite  the  same.  Saying  that  I  ought  to 
know  love  isn't  quite  the  same  as  saying 
that  I  ought  to  be  your  wife. 

"Don't  look  like  that,  Howard,"  she 
begged,  a  minute  after.  "  I  did  not  mean 
to  be  unkind.  Tell  me  :  do  you  mean  on 
general  principles  that  my  pictures  ought 
to  look  as  if  I  did  not  understand  things, 
or  do  they  look  so  ?  " 

"  They  do  look  so,  I  think,"  he  answered 
slowly.  "  It  isn't  honest  human  feeling, 
but  a  woman's  notion  of  things  she  hasn't 
known." 

A  startled  look  came  into  Anne's  eyes. 

"  At  least,"  she  said  coldly,  "  I  am  not 
a  monster.  I  shall  not  sacrifice  you  to  my 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  71 

need  of  experience.  You  have  used  the 
wrong  argument." 

"  The  trouble  with  you,  Nannie,  is  that 
you  think  too  hard.  Your  conscience  has 
got  into  your  feelings." 

"  The  trouble  with  you  is,"  said  Anne 
with  a  laugh,  "  that  you  show  the  mascu- 
line tendency  to  follow  blind  impulse. 
You  won't  listen  to  reason." 

"  I  haven't  had  a  chance,"  said  Howard. 

"  I  am  going  to  make  a  confession," 
said  Anne.  "  I  simply  am  not  fit  for  any 
human  experience,  because  I  am  cursed 
with  an  artistic  temperament.  No  matter 
what  I  am  doing,  a  second  consciousness 
is  always  there,  playing  spectator.  It  is 
impossible  for  anything  that  I  feel  to  be 
other  than  material  for  my  art." 

"  This  only  proves  my  point !  "  he  cried. 

"  It    means    that   you    have    never    cared 

•    enough  for  anything  to  get   beyond    the 

point  of  dramatic  insight.     I  think  I  could 

make  you  care." 

"  I  think  you  couldn't." 

"  Is  it  quite  true,  however  ?     As  I  stand 


72  A   Puritan  Bohemia 

here,  begging  for  your  love,  am  I  nothing 
but  material  for  you  ?  " 

"Nothing,"  she  answered  resolutely. 
"  I  think  only  how  you  look  while  you  are 
doing  it,  then  how  I  look  while  you  are 
doing  it.  It  is  simply  a  picture  for  me." 

After  Howard  had  gone  Anne  sat  for  a 
long  time  in  the  big  chair. 

"  That  was  brutal,"  she  said  to  herself, 
"but  it  was  true.  At  least,  there  was  a 
little  truth  in  it." 


CHAPTER    X 

HOWARD  STANTON  stood  by  his  window 
in  the  early  morning,  looking  for  the  first 
flakes  of  the  first  snow-storm.  Outside 
the  dull  air  waited  and  listened.  A  post- 
man passed  down  the  street,  the  blue  of 
his  uniform  breaking  the  dingy  red  of  the 
houses  opposite.  He  walked  swiftly. 
Few  letters  came  to  Wiggin  Avenue. 

As  Howard  gazed  he  was  conscious  for 
the  first  time  of  how  many  mornings  he 
had  stood  there,  waiting,  like  a  girl,  for  a 
letter.  This  quickening  of  the  pulses  at 
the  sight  of  the  postman  was  not  new. 
It  was  as  old  as  that  familiar,  vague  ex- 
pectation of  help  somewhere  from  out- 
side. There  was  nothing  in  the  world 
that  he  wanted  except  that  impossible 
letter  from  Anne,  telling  him  that  she 
had  relented. 

"  I  must  be  a  hopeless  idiot,"  he  said, 
thrusting  his  hands  into  his  pockets.  He 
73 


74  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

walked  up  and  down  the  room,  whistling 
dismally. 

Two  months  in  this  little  den,  with  its 
dirty  walls,  its  rough,  splintering  wood- 
work, and  the  abominable  folding-bed  with 
its  green  canton-flannel  curtain ;  a  lecture 
a  week  to  workingmen  ;  long  hours  of  toil 
over  his  frescoes ;  and  those  indescrib- 
able dinners  that  drove  him  night  after 
night  to  dine  at  a  down-town  hotel  in  order 
not  to  lose  his  identity,  — 

"  And  what  in  the  mischief  does  it  all 
amount  to,"  demanded  the  young  giant  of 
himself  fiercely.  Then  he  ran  into  the 
corner  of  the  great  red  plush  chair  that 
faced  the  great  purple  plush  chair.  It  was 
the  corner  that  he  usually  ran  into. 

"  The  way  of  reformers  is  hard,"  he 
said,  sitting  down  in  the  purple  chair  with 
a  groan. 

Mrs.  Orr  came  in  to  make  up  the  folding- 
bed.  She  was  a  dishevelled  little  woman 
in  a  limp,  ash-coloured  wrapper.  As  she 
worked,  she  talked  rapidly  of  the  wrongs 
she  suffered  at  the  hands  of  her  customers. 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  75 

"I  suppose,"  thought  Howard,  watching 
her  as  she  folded  up  the  coverlet,  "  that  in 
order  to  be  consistent  I  ought  to  do  that. 
What  right  have  I  to  ask  people  to  do 
things  for  me  that  I  wouldn't  do  myself  ? " 

But  he  conversed  cheerfully,  even  while 
Mrs.  Orr  rearranged  his  canvases,  placing 
one  picture  where  its  corner  poked  into 
another.  Presently  she  went  away,  send- 
ing Annabel  in  to  dust. 

Annabel  paused  by  the  cheap  little  book- 
case. 

"  I  like  to  read,"  she  said  suggestively, 
trailing  her  dust-cloth  into  some  water  that 
had  overflowed  from  a  vase,  and  dragging 
it  over  a  new  copy  of  La  Farge's  lectures 
on  art.  "  I'm  awful  fond  of  books." 

"Are  you  ? "  said  the  young  man,  coming 
out  of  a  fit  of  abstraction.  "  Oh  see  here, 
Annabel,  don't  do  that.  Books  oughtn't 
to  be  mopped,  you  know.  What  do  you 
like  to  read  ?  " 

"Everything."  Annabel's  eyes  began 
to  shine,  and  she  seated  herself  for  a  con- 
versation. 


76  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

"  I  like  Shakespere  best,"  she  said. 

"What  do  you  like  best  in  Shakespere?" 

The  child  wriggled  in  her  seat,  looking 
slightly  nonplussed. 

"  I've  been  in  Shakespere's  house,"  she 
said  evasively. 

"  Where  is  it  ? "  demanded  the  inquisi- 
tor. 

"  I've  forgotten  the  name,"  said  Annabel, 
yawning. 

"Tell  me  what  parts  of  Shakespere  you 
like  best." 

"The  poems,  all  of  'em,"  said  Annabel 
boldly. 

"  Oh !  "  exclaimed  Mr.  Stanton. 

"And,"  continued  Annabel  after  a  mo- 
ment's consideration,  "  I  like  Lady  Clara 
Vere  de  Vere  best  of  all." 

The  child  was  hurt  by  the  laugh  that 
followed. 

"  Did  you  ever  read  '  The  Children  of 
the  Abbey  '  ?  "  she  asked  reprovingly. 

"No." 

"That's  lovely,"  said  Annabel  with  the 
air  of  a  hardened  litterateur.  "Wouldn't 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  77 

you  like  to  have  me  read  you  some  after 
I've  washed  my  dishes  ? " 

"Certainly,"  said  the  artist. 

Annabel  went  away.  Mr.  Stanton  took 
out  his  notebook  to  examine  his  last 
sketches.  There  was  something  the  mat- 
ter with  Wisdom,  the  figure  for  which 
Annabel  had  posed  in  a  long  red  table- 
cloth. She  had  stood  upon  the  kitchen 
table  for  it,  and  had  tumbled,  hurting  her 
arm.  He  touched  the  drawing  with  a  pen- 
cil, then  threw  the  notebook  away.  He 
could  not  work  this  morning. 

Standing  again  at  the  window  he  looked 
out  at  the  fast-falling  flakes  of  snow.  The 
old  restlessness  was  strong  upon  him. 
Something  denied  had  kept  him  from  ever 
feeling  at  home  in  the  world. 

Just  now  he  did  not  care  whether  the 
poor  were  helped  or  not.  He  did  not  care 
about  his  work.  One  thing  he  wanted, 
and  one  only.  That  was  to  touch  the  soft, 
brown  hair  parted  over  Anne's  forehead. 

How  many  times,  in  how  many  places, 
he  had  lived  this  mood  over !  In  the  old 


78  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

Paris  days  he  had  sought  relief  in  walking, 
—  through  the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  in  the 
Versailles  Gardens,  down  the  Avenues  des 
Champs  Elysees  toward  the  setting  sun, 
anywhere,  everywhere.  He  had  walked 
by  river  and  wood,  but  Anne  had  not  been 
there. 

Then  the  passion  had  relented.  New  in- 
terests softened  the  old  grievance.  Would 
this  be  true  again  ? 

Annabel  came  back  with  her  book.  It 
was  a  tattered  copy  of  the  old  novel.  She 
proudly  accepted  Mr.  Stanton's  invitation 
to  sit  down  in  the  red  chair.  Her  apron 
was  very  clean  ;  her  face  bore  traces  of 
recent  scrubbing. 

"Did  you  ever  see  a  Unitarian,  Mr. 
Stanton  ? "  she  asked,  thinking  that  some 
general  remarks  would  be  appropriate. 

"Yes." 

"  I  never  did,"  said  Annabel  in  a  low- 
ered voice.  "  They're  awful,  ain't  they  ? 
They  don't  believe  into  a  God,  or  a  heaven, 
or  a  hell,  or  angels,  or  devils,  or  nothin'. 
But  they  worship  idols,  they  do  !  " 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  79 

Then  she  opened  her  book.  Carefully 
picking  her  way  among  the  big  words,  she 
read  bits  of  her  favourite  scenes  : 

" '  The  pale  and  varied  blush  which 
mantled  the  cheek  of  Amanda  at  once 
announced  itself  to  be  an  involuntary  suf- 
fusion, and  her  dress  was  only  remarkable 
for  its  simplicity ;  she  wore  a  plain  robe 
of  dimity,  and  an  abbey  cap  of  thin  muslin 
that  shaded,  without  concealing,  her  face, 
and  gave  to  it  the  soft  expression  of  a 
Madonna ;  her  beautiful  hair  fell  in  long 
ringlets  down  her  back,  and  curled  upon 
her  forehead. 

"'"Good  heaven!"  cried  Mortimer, 
"how  has  your  idea  dwelt  upon  my  mind 
since  last  night :  if  in  the  morning  I 
was  charmed,  in  the  evening  I  was  en- 
raptured." 

Annabel  paused.  An  idea  had  struck 
her. 

"  I  think  Amanda  looked  like  Miss 
Wistar,  don't  you?" 

"  I  guess  so,"  said  the  artist  moodily. 

"  I  like  Miss  Wistar   best,  don't   you  ? 


8o  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

I  mean,  except  you.  I  like  you  best  of 
all." 

The  child  fingered  over  the  leaves,  and 
began  again  : 

" '  Lord  Mortimer  received  the  lovely 
trembler  in  his  arms.  He  softly  called 
her  his  Amanda,  the  beloved  of  his  soul, 
and  she  began  to  revive.'  " 

"  Isn't  that  a  queer  book  for  a  little 
girl  ?"  asked  the  listener. 

"  My  mamma  said  it  was  a  little  girls' 
book.  It's  'The  Children,'  you  know,  'of 
the  Abbey.' 

"  '  Lord  Mortimer  trembled  universally, 
and  was  obliged  to  have  recourse  to  his 
handkerchief.' ' 

A  sleepy  laugh  came  from  Mr.  Stanton's 
chair.  Sad  thoughts  and  the  falling  snow 
and  Annabel's  droning  voice  were  sooth- 
ing him  to  rest.  Annabel  turned  back  to 
the  first  part  of  the  book : 

" '  Lord  Mortimer  was  now  in  the  glow- 
ing prime  of  life:  his  person  was  strikingly 
elegant,  and  his  manners  insinuatingly 
pleasing ;  seducing  sweetness  dwelt  in 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  81 

his  smile,  and,  as  he  pleased,  his  expres- 
sive eyes  could  sparkle  with  intelligence, 
or  beam  with  sensibility ;  and  to  the  elo- 
quence of  his  language  the  harmony  of 
his  voice  imparted  a  charm  that  seldom 
failed  of  being  irresistible.'  " 

Annabel  looked  over  at  the  crumpled 
hair,  flushed  cheeks,  and  slightly  opened 
mouth  of  the  artist. 

"That's  like  him!"  said  Annabel. 
"Ain't  it  nice?" 

For  to  Annabel  had  come  that  joy  of 
the  born  artist  when  life  plays  for  him  the 
first  time  the  drama  he  has  cared  most  for 
in  books. 


CHAPTER   XI 

"The  river  went  weeping,  weeping! 
Ah  me,  how  it  did  weep ! 
But  I  would  never  heed  it, 
The  weeping  of  the  river  .  .  . 
The  stars  —  poor  stars  —  were  weeping 
But  I  would  not  hear  their  weeping 
Whilst  yet  I  heard  thy  voice. 
Then  these,  the  river  with  its  weeping, 
The  piteous  stars,  the  miserable  men, 
All  prayed  the  earth's  dark  depths  to  take  thee  from  me, 
That  so  my  woe  might  understand  their  woe. 
And  now  —  I  weep." 

The  Bard  of  the  Dimbovitza. 

MRS.  KENT  had  taken  many  steps  in 
her  quest :  down  crowded  shopping  streets, 
past  dime  museums  and  cheap  theatres, 
through  the  Italian  square  where  intoler- 
able hand-organs  played  forever  "  Home, 
Sweet  Home."  The  cries,  the  jolting  of 
the  wagons,  the  heavy  beat  of  horses'  hoofs, 
and  the  sight  of  great  loads  of  leather, 
granite,  lumber,  along  the  shipping  streets, 
brought  her  a  certain  relief.  In  merely 
82 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  83 

watching  the  hard  play  of  life  there  was 
a  sense  of  escape. 

Very  often  Anne  went  with  her.  Mrs. 
Kent  marvelled  at  the  artist's  insight  into 
the  expression  of  inanimate  things,  her 
swift  recognition  of  human  feeling.  It 
was  Anne  who  pointed  out  a  door-step, 
worn  by  many  feet ;  a  bit  of  New  England 
garden,  sunflower  or  hollyhock,  among 
the  swarming  tenements  ;  the  curve  of  a 
woman's  arm  as  she  held  her  child. 

They  enjoyed  the  pleasure  of  confiden- 
tial intercourse  in  a  crowd.  They  talked 
of  themselves,  of  their  friends,  in  half- 
whispers,  the  sentences  interrupted  often 
by  a  long  line  of  passers-by. 

One  day,  threading  their  way  among  the 
old-clothes  shops  of  Salutation  Street,  they 
spoke  of  Howard. 

"I  like  him,"  said  Mrs.  Kent.  "He 
has  preserved  such  a  freshness  and  sweet- 
ness through  all  the  experiences  of  his 
student  life." 

"  He  is  a  nice  boy,"  Anne  responded 
cordially.  "  Only  he's  spoiled.  You  see, 


84  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

he  is  the  only  son  of  a  wealthy  father. 
He  always  wanted  too  many  things  and 
he  always  got  them.  He  lives  in  spasms. 
An  idea  possesses  him  and  he  thinks  it 
is  the  only  idea  in  the  world,  until  a  new 
one  comes.  And  he  insists  on  immediate 
responses  to  all  his  demands.  What  he 
needs  is  discipline." 

Mrs.  Kent  looked  down  and  smiled. 

"You  seem  to  have  studied  him  very 
thoroughly.  That  temperament  is  usually 
sufficient  punishment  for  itself,  isn't  it  ? " 

"Then,"  Anne  continued,  "he's  too  ego- 
istic. He  says  'I '  too  often." 

"  That  very  egoism  shows  lack  of  self-con- 
sciousness. It  is  the  egoism  of  a  child." 

"The  fact  is,"  said  Anne  with  a  laugh, 
"there  are  two  of  him,  boy  and  fanatic. 
He's  a  kind  of  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde. 
I  like  the  boy  very  well.  Look ! "  she 
cried,  touching  Mrs.  Kent's  arm.  "  See 
how  that  composes  !  " 

It  was  a  group  of  chattering  Italian 
women  on  a  dark  side  street.  Children 
were  playing  about  them. 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  85 

"  Those  children  all  look  ill,"  remarked 
Mrs.  Kent  sadly,  as  she  guided  Anne  down 
the  narrow  alley  way.  "  Most  of  them 
are  bow-legged." 

"  Oh  dear !  "  groaned  Anne,  "  I  never 
thought  of  that !  I  just  saw  how  pictur- 
esque it  all  was,  the  bright  kerchiefs  and 
the  wrinkled  faces  and  the  brown  curls  of 
the  children.  I  don't  believe  I've  got  any 
human  instincts.  Why  are  people  made 
with  eyes  that  see  only  one  thing  and 
hearts  that  wish  only  one  thing,  unless 
they  are  meant  to  have  it  ? " 

"  What  do  you  mean  ? " 

"  Only  that  I  can't  imagine  how  one 
can  look  upon  the  world  as  anything  ex- 
cept material  for  pictures.  It  is  madden- 
ingly full  of  things  to  paint.  There  is  no 
time  to  lose." 

"You  don't  lose  much." 

"  I  know.  But  it  all  seems  so  selfish. 
An  idea  gets  hold  of  me  and  then  the 
heavens  and  earth  seem  made  to  help  me 
express  it.  Patches  of  colour  on  garden 
walls,  and  the  sunlight  on  far-off  things, 


86  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

and  the  look  on  faces  in  the  streets  show 
me  how  to  do  it.  I  can't  see  anything 
else,  or  think  of  anything  else." 

They  passed  one  of  the  city's  old  bury- 
ing-grounds,  which  make  sudden  silences 
along  the  busy  streets.  The  clear  sunlight 
on  the  leaves  shading  those  forgotten 
graves  brought  tears  to  the  artist's  eyes. 

"Oh!"  she  cried,  "the  pain  of  life 
presses  down  so  heavily  that  I  cannot  bear 
it.  I  sometimes  wonder  if  the  reason  why 
I  am  hard-hearted  is  because  things  hurt 
me  so  that  I  cannot  feel." 

On  Sunday  afternoons  Howard  usually 
accompanied  Mrs.  Kent.  He  was  a  wel- 
come guest.  The  wicked  old  woman  called 
him  a  beautiful  young  man.  The  girls  in 
the  Italian  families  flushed  with  pride  at 
the  honour  of  his  calls.  Children  swarmed 
upon  his  knees.  Babies  rode  upon  his 
shoulder.  He  had  a  chivalrous  way  of 
protecting  the 'helpless.  He  stopped  one 
day  abruptly  in  an  exposition  of  his  views, 
to  guide  an  aged  rag-picker  across  the 
street.  Returning,  he  finished  his  disser- 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  87 

tation.  It  was  a  mistake,  he  said,  to  care 
for  the  sick  and  the  afflicted,  the  relics 
of  the  past.  One  should  face  toward  the 
future,  spending  all  one's  effort  on  those 
for  whom  there  is  still  hope. 

It  was  midwinter.  Morning  after  morn- 
ing Mrs.  Kent  was  wakened  by  the  sound 
of  the  shovelling  of  snow.  It  fell  with  a 
thud,  like  the  dropping  of  sod  upon  cof- 
fin-lids. To  her  bitter  questioning  as  to 
why  so  great  a  love  had  been  given  her 
only  to  be  taken  away,  no  answer  came, 
until,  in  a  brief  moment  of  experience  on 
a  cloudy  winter  day,  she  caught  a  sudden 
flash  of  the  hidden  meanings  of  things. 

Her  old  feeling  of  the  senselessness  of 
all  she  did  had  followed  her  that  afternoon. 
Only  the  mechanical  acts  of  existence  were 
left  her,  for  the  past  was  slipping,  and  she 
could  not  hold  it  back.  She  saw  herself 
passing  into  a  gray  indifference. 

As  she  climbed  the  tenement-house 
stairs  she  clung  to  the  railing.  She  was 
dazed.  Everything  seemed  crumbling  away 
like  ropes  of  sand.  Then  she  summoned 


88  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

her  courage  and  knocked  at  a  grimy 
door. 

Half  an  hour  later  she  came  downstairs 
with  the  light  of  a  new  knowledge  in  her 
eyes.  She  could  never  define  for  her- 
self the  precise  nature  of  the  experience 
through  which  she  had  passed.  In  the 
room  she  had  entered  was  a  woman  sob- 
bing at  the  side  of  her  little  child,  who 
lay  dead  with  the  print  of  his  tiny  fingers 
still  visible  in  the  dirt  on  his  cheek. 

As  she  went  away  Mrs.  Kent  paused 
for  a  minute  in  the  hall.  Then  she  leaned 
her  forehead  against  the  rough  plaster  with 
a  little  sob  of  sheer  joy.  It  was  good  to 
be  hurt  like  that  by  another's  pain.  She 
bowed  her  head  in  thankfulness  for  a  sor- 
row that  had  become  ^to  her  a  key  to  the 
grief  of  all  the  world. 


CHAPTER    XII 

"  Ye  pilgrim  folk,  advancing  pensively 
As  if  in  thought  of  distant  things,  I  pray 
Is  your  own  land  indeed  so  far  away 
As  by  your  aspect  it  would  seem  to  be?  " 

ROSSETTI'S  Translation  of  Dante's 
Vita  Nuova, 

BOHEMIA  had  cast  its  spell  upon  Miss 
Wistar.  She  revelled  in  the  waywardness 
of  her  new  life.  Lunching  every  day  at  a 
restaurant ;  breakfasting  when  she  chose 
in  her  studio ;  exploring  at  her  own  will 
the  irregular  streets  of  the  old  city,  —  this 
was  freedom,  this  was  reality. 

"  How  can  people  go  on  living  in  stiff 
houses  and  doing  the  same  things  over 
every  day  ?  "  she  asked  Anne  Bradford  one 
rainy  noon,  over  an  improvised  luncheon 
of  caraway  cakes  and  tea. 

"  Giving  stupid  dinners  and  luncheons 
and  receptions,"  Anne  rejoined. 

"And  making  senseless  calls.  Oh,  this 
is  the  only  life  to  live  !  " 

The  severity  of  Helen's  mood  abated. 
89 


9O  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

She  was  almost  gay.  There  was  an  intoxi- 
cating interest  in  the  life  in  this  new  coun- 
try. Queer  things  happened  in  this  queer 
building :  theatricals,  concerts,  art  exhibi- 
tions. Monks  and  satyrs  and  long-trained 
queens  wandered  through  the  corridors  on 
the  evenings  of  masquerade  balls.  Col- 
lege boys  in  feminine  costumes  laughed  in 
corners  between  the  acts  of  the  plays  they 
gave. 

Greater  than  the  charm  of  the  social  life 
that  Helen  watched  was  the  social  life  she 
shared.  A  pleasant  feeling  of  comradeship 
had  grown  up  between  the  four  people 
whose  paths  had  crossed  in  Bohemia.  The 
evenings  in  the  studio  when  they  sat  to- 
gether, discussing  life  and  literature  and 
art  gave  Helen  a  cheerful  feeling  of  dis- 
sipation. Here  Anne  Bradford  said  wise 
things  that  Helen  did  not  believe ;  Mrs. 
Kent  said  wise  things  that  Helen  did  not 
understand ;  and  Howard  Stanton  said  wise 
things  that 

"  Marked  the  boundary 
Where  men  grew  blind,  though  angels  knew  the  rest." 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  91 

The  excitement  of  all  this  made  Helen 
feel  that  she  was  at  last  in  the  great  cur- 
rent of  life.  The  sternness  of  its  struggle 
was  hers. 

"  Suppose  we  form  a  Round  Table  fel- 
lowship," said  Anne  Bradford  one  even- 
ing. "  My  tea-table  shall  be  the  social 
centre." 

"  I  consent,  with  rapture,"  responded 
Howard. 

"It  is  queer,"  Anne  continued,  "but, 
do  you  know,  I  cannot  find  any  interesting 
people  outside  of  Bohemia." 

"  Or  any  interesting  ideas,"  said  Helen  ; 
"but  that's  the  same  thing." 

"Or  any  good  coffee,"  added  Howard, 
lifting  his  cup. 

Snow  lay  on  roof  and  on  garden  wall, 
and  east  winds  wailed  in  the  streets.  In 
the  Square  the  long  willow  branches  waved 
in  falling  snow  and  fitful  sunshine.  But 
the  wind  in  their  faces,  and  the  mud  and 
snow  of  the  ways  they  walked,  were  as 
nothing  to  the  seekers  for  the  ideal. 
Howard  Stanton  went  on  making  great 


92  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

washes  on  his  canvas.     Anne  worked  with 
imperceptible  strokes,  humming  sometimes, 

"  Point  d'hiver  pour  les  cceurs  fiddles. 
Us  sont  toujours  dans  le  printemps." 

Under  the  stimulus  of  this  new  life, 
where  hope  and  fear  and  desire  chased 
one  another  in  quickly  shifting  moods, 
Helen  Wistar  woke  to  a  consciousness  of 
the  time  already  lost  at  twenty.  Her 
masters  were  teaching  her  mere  technique. 
In  that  which  was  to  her  the  very  soul  of 
art  she  was  making  no  progress.  She  was 
tired  of  plaster  heads  and  of  ragged  models. 
What  good  could  ever  come  of  painting 
just  what  one  saw  ?  One's  thought  of 
what  the  world  should  be  ought  to  be  ex- 
pressed in  one's  work. 

She  too  would  paint  a  picture,  embody- 
ing her  new  belief.  In  a  misguided 
moment  she  confided  her  idea  to  Anne. 
A  belligerent  intimacy  had  sprung  up 
between  the  two  girls. 

Anne,  after  a  losing  struggle  with  her  con- 
science, betrayed  the  same  to  Mrs.  Kent. 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  93 

"  Helen  is  painting  a  picture,"  said  the 
artist,  the  corners  of  her  mouth  twitching. 
"  She  calls  it  symbolic.  It  is  the  rich 
young  man  of  the  Gospels  going  back  to 
his  own  selfish  life.  There's  a  group  of 
ragged  people  in  the  foreground.  One 
model  posed  for  them  all.  The  young  man 
is  turning  away.  Only,  the  perspective  is 
queer,  and  the  canvas  is  so  crowded  with 
the  poor  that  there  isn't  going  to  be  much 
room  for  the  rich  young  man." 

"  Can  the  child  draw  ?  " 

"  No,  but  she  can  feel,"  said  Anne 
slowly.  "  She  has  too  much  ambition  in 
her  heart,  and  not  enough  in  her  fingers. 
We  women  are  all  like  that.  We'd  rather 
think  how  glorious  our  work  is  than  do  it." 

"  Helen  is  one  of  those  whom  the  gods 
send  far  off  to  find  that  which  lies  nearest 
at  hand,"  responded  Mrs.  Kent. 

From  the  interesting  people  who  had 
become  her  friends,  Helen  turned  wistfully 
to  those  whom  she  wished  to  help.  Her 
serious  purpose  had  not  been  forgotten. 
She  watched  her  fellow-Bohemians  with 


94  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

interest  as  they  went  their  way,  in  the 
city,  yet  not  of  it.  Through  its  streets 
and  its  shops  they  walked  with  an  air  of 
seeing  something  a  long  way  off.  They 
mingled  with  young  ladies  and  matrons  at 
crowded  shopping-places.  But,  standing 
by  the  pin,  tape,  and  braid  counter,  they 
discussed  in  one  breath  the  world-will  of 
Schopenhauer,  the  spirituality  of  Pre- 
Raphaelitism,  and  the  kind  of  velveteen  to 
be  used  for  facings.  They  stopped  be- 
tween courses  in  their  luncheons  to  put 
down  points  in  their  notebooks.  They 
talked  Theosophy  in  the  street  cars. 
They  argued  of  the  ideal  on  muddy 
corners. 

Reverence  mingled  with  Helen's  pity 
for  them.  Their  ignoring  of  material  com- 
forts condemned  her  traditions.  Their 
longing  for  the  intangible  roused  her 
aspiration.  But  she  could  not  reach 
them.  All  around  her,  they  were  yet 
remote. 

Certain  words  of  Anne  Bradford  filled 
her  with  vague  misgiving. 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  95 

"You  cannot  do  it,  my  dear.  Your 
little  economies  are  only  affectation.  The 
real  struggle  you  cannot  possibly  under- 
stand." 

"But,"  pleaded  Helen,  "I  am  so  sorry 
for  these  women." 

"Doubtless  they  are  sorry  for  you." 
The  little  artist  set  her  lips  firmly  to- 
gether. "  If  I  have  any  grip  on  my  art, 
it  is  because  I  have  to  fight  for  it.  Thank 
Heaven  for  the  things  that  are  hard  !  " 

Helen  grieved  much  over  Anne's  lack 
of  sympathy. 

"  Miss  Bradford  makes  me  feel  as  if 
nothing  were  worth  while,"  she  said 
mournfully,  one  day,  to  Mr.  Stanton.  He 
had  overtaken  her  as  she  crossed  the 
park,  in  the  late  afternoon.  All  about 
them  lay  deep  snow.  Above,  the  bare 
tree  branches  stood  out  against  broken 
purple  clouds.  There  were  gleaming  lights 
in  far-away  shop-windows,  and  in  the 
crawling  electric  cars. 

"  Never  mind.  It  is  all  worth  while," 
said  the  young  man  reassuringly. 


96  A   Puritan  Bohemia 

"  Isn't  Miss  Bradford  rather  blind  to 
the  ideal  aspects  of  things  ? " 

"  Some  things,"  answered  Howard 
grimly,  "and  given  to  over-idealizing  in 
others." 

There  was  one  small  person  whom 
Helen  was  able  to  reach  and  influence. 
This  was  Annabel.  The  child  loved  Miss 
Wistar.  The  sealskin  cape  had  touched 
a  chord  in  her  nature  that  nothing  had 
ever  touched  before.  Helen  had  begun 
to  teach  her  in  the  evenings.  Annabel 
cast  about  in  her  mind  for  some  way  of 
showing  her  gratitude  to  her  benefactor. 

"  What  do  you  s'pose  I  heard  Mr.  Stan- 
ton  say  the  other  day  ? "  she  asked  sud- 
denly, on  the  night  of  the  third  lesson. 
Annabel  had  been  slightly  bored,  and  was 
pining  for  excitement. 

"How  can  I  tell?" 

"  I  was  a-coming  through  the  hall.  My 
little  brother  was  ill,  and  I  was  taking  him 
some  broth.  It  was  chicken  broth,"  said 
Annabel,  with  an  air  of  giving  circum- 
stantial evidence.  "Mr.  Stanton's  door 


A   Puritan   Bohemia  97 

was  open,  and  I  heard  him  say,  '  Helen. 
O  my  Helen  !  '" 

"  Go  on  reading,"  commanded  Miss 
Wistar. 

"And  then  he  said,  'Gracious  heavens! 
How  can  I ' " 

Annabel  was  sent  home  in  disgrace. 
Miss  Wistar  sat  alone  a  long  time,  in 
the  dark,  thinking.  The  child  was  so 
pleased  with  this  new  bit  of  fiction  that 
she  stopped  at  Miss  Bradford's  studio  and 
repeated  it,  with  additions. 


CHAPTER    XIII 

"  Console-moi  ce  soir;  je  me  meurs  d'esperance." 

La  Nuit  de  Mai,  ALFRED  DE  MUSSET. 

ANNE  BRADFORD  could  not  sleep.  There 
was  a  concert  in  the  Music  Hall,  and  the 
wailing  of  the  violins  disturbed  her.  It 
seemed  as  if  the  bows  were  being  drawn 
across  her  nerves. 

At  last  she  rose  and  came  into  the 
studio,  in  her  gray  wrapper.  One  star 
was  shining  through  the  skylight.  Anne 
lit  her  hanging  lamp  and  made  a  fire  in 
the  fireplace,  then  stood  over  it,  shivering, 
and  warming  her  hands. 

She  studied  anxiously  her  new  picture 
on  the  easel.  The  work  was  bad.  For 
weeks  she  had  accomplished  nothing  worth 
while.  And  why  ?  she  demanded  impa- 
tiently. This  mental  disturbance  was  only 
superficial.  She  was  perfectly  sure  of 
herself.  Some  day  Howard  would  learn 
to  care  about  Helen.  Even  now  he  did 
98 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  99 

not  realize  how  much  he  depended  upon 
her. 

"  I  shall  be  glad,"  said  Anne  firmly. 
But  she  knew  better. 

She  smiled,  remembering  the  tears  she 
had  shed  on  the  day  of  his  first  call.  They 
were  tears  of  regret  in  not  finding  herself 
mistaken  in  the  old  decision  on  the  wharf. 
The  four  years'  silence  had  been  eloquent. 

"  Whoever  wants  to  prevail  with  me 
should  stay  away,"  thought  Anne,  walking 
restlessly  up  and  down.  "  The  winds  and 
the  stars  will  plead  his  cause  more  elo- 
quently than  he.  Only,  it  will  be  fatal 
for  him  ever  to  come  back ! " 

She  wondered  if  in  every  experience  the 
gods  had  prepared  for  her  disappointment, 
trying  to  pit  reality  against  a  dream. 

Taking  up  her  brushes  she  began  to 
paint.  Then  the  music  became  a  voice,  a 
cry  for  all  she  had  wanted  and  had  missed 
in  life.  That  was  a  false  stroke !  She 
laid  down  her  palette  and  put  out  the  light, 
then  curled  up  on  the  rug  before  the  fire. 

Self-expression  !     To  leave  a  record  of 


ioo  A  Puritan   Bohemia 

her  way  of  looking  at  things,  —  that  was 
all  she  had  striven  for.  Her  thoughts 
drifted  back  to  that  summer  afternoon  in 
the  Cluny  Garden,  when  grass  and  trees 
and  the  queer  bits  of  Gothic  architecture 
lay  deep  in  shade.  The  consecration  of 
that  hour  could  not  have  been  a  mistake. 
She  reached  vainly  back  for  the  inspira- 
tion- of  the  mornings  when  she  had  crossed 
the  Pont  Royal  on  her  way  to  the  studio, 
and  had  seen  the  sun  coming  red  through 
the  mist  behind  the  Notre  Dame  towers 
and  the  spire  of  the  Sainte  Chapelle.  Her 
sight  had  been  clear  in  those  days,  her 
purpose  single. 

She  sat  with  a  background  of  shadow, 
an  unwonted  look  of  self-distrust  in  her 
delicately  cut  face.  The  leaping  flame  on 
the  hearth  lit  up  the  Winged  Victory,  and 
touched  the  sneering  lips  of  the  devil  of 
Notre  Dame. 

"Anyway,"  she  said  at  last  with  a 
laugh,  "after  wrestling  with  a  Notion  for 
four  years,  and  almost  getting  the  better 
of  it,  I  am  not  afraid  of  a  man.  Whatever 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  101 

happens,  I'll  follow  the  old  desire.  It  is 
the  nearest  thing  to  a  soul  that  I  have 
ever  had.  But  I  am  not  sorry  that  I 
have  been  obliged  to  think  it  all  out 
again.  Now  it  is  settled  forever." 

Feeling  safe  in  this  new  resolve,  she  set 
her  fancy  free.  The  last  strains  of  music, 
tender,  sweet,  floated  up  to  her.  They 
came  like  the  touch  of  pleading  fingers. 
She  rose  with  a  start,  a  flush  of  guilt  upon 
her  face.  There  was  a  sudden  gleam  from 
the  fire.  From  the  wall  certain  words  that 
she  had  painted  on  the  back  of  an  old 
palette  shone  out  like  a  reproach,  — 

"  Se  tu  segui  tua  stella." 
***** 

At  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  Miserere 
woke,  and  stretched  out  his  gray  paws  on 
the  soft  divan.  His  mistress  was  late. 
He  gave  one  soft,  sleepy,  injured  mew. 
The  old  grievance  against  life  came  back 
to  him  with  returning  consciousness. 

Miserere  was  unhappy.  His  was  the 
heritage  of  the  man 


IO2  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

"  Who  vainly  pants 
For  some  celestial  fruit  forbidden  to  our  wants." 

A  sullen  look  crept  into  his  eyes.  He 
lashed  the  couch  with  his  tail. 

"  Strange  pangs  would  flash  across  Childe  Harold's 

brow, 

As  if  the  memory  of  some  deadly  feud, 
Or  disappointed  passion,  lurked  below." 

He  wanted  to  know  how  to  get  into  the 
larder.  It  was  this  withheld  knowledge 
that  made  him  mew.  Life  was  for  him 
a  long  fever  because  of  the  unequal  re- 
sponses to  his  demands  upon  the  material 
world. 

Presently  his  mistress  appeared.  From 
the  corner  she  brought  a  little  oak  table, 
and  over  it  threw  a  white  cloth.  Then, 
behind  a  great  brown  canvas  screen  where 
golden-rod  was  painted,  she  made  her  coffee 
on  a  tiny  gas  stove.  The  raven,  as  she 
called  the  milkman,  put  down  a  jar  of 
cream  outside  her  door.  Miserere  heard 
it,  and  went  to  sit  close  by  the  crack. 

Anne  smiled  when  her  breakfast  was 
ready.  It  was  all  so  old-maidish, — the 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  103 

Sevres  china,  the  diminutive  spoons,  the 
rolls,  the  jar  of  marmalade.  Long  shafts 
of  light  came  into  the  studio.  Anne 
thought  of  the  way  in  which  the  autumn 
sunlight  used  to  crawl  in  the  early  morn- 
ing up  the  meadow  by 'her  father's  parson- 
age. The  grass  was  always  covered  with 
misty  cobwebs  that  glistened  in  the  sun. 
That  was  so  long  ago. 

She  poured  her  coffee  into  the  white 
and  gold  cup.  Miserere  jumped  mewing 
to  her  lap. 

"  You  miserable,  carnal-minded  beast," 
she  said,  touching  him  affectionately. 
"You  will  never  be  happy,  because  you 
want  the  wrong  thing.  Somebody  said 
once,  '  Man  is  not  a  happy  animal,  because 
his  appetite  for  sweet  victual  is  so  enor- 
mous.' You  are  like  man." 

There  was  a  knock  at  the  door.  The 
janitor  had  brought  Miss  Bradford  a  letter. 
It  was  a  typewritten  refusal  of  the  two 
pictures  that  she  had  sent  to  the  Botticelli 
Art  Club  for  the  winter  exhibition. 

"  I    expected    it,"  she   said  quietly,  but 


IO4  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

her  eyes  grew  moist.  She  was  a  failure. 
Her  ambition  had  outstripped  her  gift. 

"  I  needn't  have  been  so  supercilious, 
Miserere,"  she  remarked,  stroking  the  cat's 
gray  head.  "I'm  like  you,  after  all.  I 
thought  that  it  was  work  I  cared  for, 
the  discipline  of  hand  and  brain.  But 
I  rather  think  I  wanted  only  '  sweet 
victual.'  " 

Then  she  reddened  at  the  memory  of  her 
thoughts  of  the  night  before. 

"  A  woman's  despair  —  with  complica- 
tions "  -  she  said,  half  laughing,  "  is  very 
dangerous.  I  can't  surrender  now,  any- 
way. Whatever  love  is,  it  isn't  a  second 
choice." 

She  pushed  the  table  away.  She  was 
not  hungry. 

"'Wer  nie  sein  Brod  mit  Thranen  ass,'" 

she  quoted  sadly.  "  I  have  more  :  bread, 
and  tears,  —  and  jam." 

Then  she  put  on  her  painting-apron. 

"  I  wonder  if  the  gods  really  want  me 
to  give  up,"  she  asked  herself  meekly, 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  105 

as  she  mixed  her  colours.     She  set  her 
lips. 

"I  don't  care  if  they  do,  I  sha'n't! 
After  all,  there's  some  pleasure  in  failing 
in  the  one  thing  you  really  want  to  do." 


CHAPTER   XIV 

"  MAY  I  ask  what  that  red  patch  in  the 
lower  left-hand  corner  of  the  canvas  is  ? " 
asked  Anne. 

She  was  looking  at  "Art  and  Need." 
The  picture  was  almost  done.  Weeks  of 
weather  as  variable  as  Anne's  moods  had 
passed.  Now  the  days  were  longer,  and 
the  changed  light  of  the  sun  had  become 
a  prophecy  of  spring. 

"That?  Grass,  in  the  sun,"  answered 
Howard,  squeezing  more  red  paint  from  a 
tube. 

"  And  the  allegorical  significance  of  the 
grass  ? " 

"  Depends  upon  the  spectator,"  answered 
the  artist.  "  It  means  that  which  it  means 
to  you.  Symbolic  art  is  no  ready-made 
product.  Its  office  is  to  evoke,  to  draw 
forth  from  you,  to  make  you  a  creator." 

Anne  groaned.     Howard's  eyes  twinkled. 

"  In  all  impressionist  work,  of  course, 
1 06 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  107 

the  colours  blend  in  your  eye,  not  on  the 
canvas.  Here,  in  addition  to  that,  the 
various  elements  of  truth  must  blend  in 
your  soul  in  order  to  have  coherence. 
'All  art  is  what  you  do  when  you  look 
at  it.'  " 

"Isn't  that  a  subterfuge  of  the  artist 
who  hasn't  energy  to  make  his  work  per- 
fect ? " 

"  Perfection  is  limitation,"  answered 
Howard  gravely.  "  Symbolism  means 
trying  to  say  more  than  can  be  said. 
The  message  transcends  expression.  Its 
imperfection  is  its  greatness." 

"Then  there  ought  to  be  two  kinds  of 
expression,"  said  Anne.  "  If  the  Art 
Club  accepts  this,  I  am  going  to  write 
an  explanatory  poem  for  you  to  tack  to 
the  frame.  It  is  positive  cruelty  to  the 
masses  to  give  them  sa  much  hidden 
meaning." 

"The  picture  will  speak  to  those  who 
can  listen.  If  you  are  the  right  spectator 
its  meaning  will  flash  upon  you.  For  this 
is  given  it  the  touch  of  strangeness,  of 


io8  A   Puritan  Bohemia 

mystery.  The  soul  of  things  can  be 
apprehended  only  by  the  soul.  The  in- 
terpretation is  the  measure  of  your 
nature." 

"  I  feel  very  small,"  said  Anne.  "  Please 
excuse  me  for  living." 

Anne  did  not  try  to  work.  She  sat 
lazily  in  her  grandfather's  arm-chair,  think- 
ing. Once  she  looked  up  with  her  sauciest 
smile. 

"Don't  you  think,"  she  asked,  "that 
you  have  too  many  fine  ideas  about  art  to 
be  a  real  artist  ? " 

"  May  I  return  the  compliment  with 
interest  ? " 

Anne  dropped  into  a  reminiscent  mood. 

"  You  always  did  things  like  that,"  she 
said.  "Do  you  remember  that  when  we 
made  mud  pies  you  always  did  cherubs 
and  angels  ?" 

"  And  you  made  dogs  and  cats,"  re- 
joined Howard.  "  Doesn't  it  all  seem  a 
thousand  years  ago  ?  " 

"  I  remember  your  Judgment  Day  scene. 
There  was  a  great  shapeless  figure  in  the 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  109 

centre,  and  on  either  side  rows  of  beings 
made  of  round  balls  of  mud  and  little 
sticks.  The  sheep  had  white  legs  and 
arms.  You  peeled  the  bark  off  for  them. 
You  left  it  on  for  the  goats.  It  was  all 
very  dramatic.  Your  art  always  was  half 
literature." 

Howard  said  nothing. 

"And  now,"  continued  Anne  audaciously, 
"it's  all  literature." 

"  I  remember  one  woolly  lamb  that  you 
made  out  of  clay,"  the  young  man  re- 
marked. "  It  looked  as  if  it  could  bleat. 
Your  father  was  so  pleased.  And  I  was 
very  proud  of  it." 

"That  was  your  way,"  said  Anne.  "  You 
liked  to  hear  me  praised.  I  was  horribly 
jealous.  Once  I  hid  in  the  parlour  and  lay 
on  the  floor  kicking  and  crying,  when  you 
had  drawn  an  angel  and  father  had  called 
you  a  genius." 

"  It  looked  just  like  you,  Nannie,"  said 
the  artist.  "  I  can  see  now  its  little  round 
cheeks.  Its  robe  was  patterned  after  your 
blue  gingham  apron." 


no  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

Mrs.  Kent  glanced  at  Anne's  flushed 
face,  and  renewed  her  resolve  to  help  this 
young  man  win  his  battle.  Helen  opened 
her  eyes  wide  at  the  sound  of  the  old 
child-name,  then  closed  them  again.  Af- 
ter all,  it  was  natural  that  he  should  use  it. 

"Well,"  said  Anne,  almost  forgetting 
her  own  confusion  in  her  enjoyment  of 
Helen's  surprise,  "  you  made  a  good  begin- 
ning. I  am  sorry  to  see  you  taking  up  a 
theory  of  art  that  seems  to  me  cowardly. 
Your  idealism  shirks  the  battle  with  things 
as  they  are." 

"  But  you  are  no  more  a  realist  than 
I  am." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"  I  mean,"  said  Howard,  laying  down 
his  brush  and  looking  at  the  pictures  on 
the  walls,  "that  you  put  into  those  faces 
all  sorts  of  heroic  emotions  that  the  people 
never  had.  You  make  the  wrinkles  deeper 
than  they  really  are,  and  you  idealize  the 
feelings  that  they  stand  for.  Your  people 
all  look  hungry,  and  not  for  bread  and 
butter." 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  1 1 1 

"  Please  speak  slowly  so  that  I  can  take 
all  this  in,"  said  Anne. 

"  Look  at  that  old  sailor,"  the  young 
man  continued  relentlessly.  "  He  is  in- 
tense, pathetic.  There's  no  recognition  in 
that  face  of  his  —  love  for  tobacco,  for 
instance.  It  is  all  a  little  bit  hysterical, 
and  feminine." 

"  It  isn't  feminine,"  said  Anne  angrily. 
"  Say  anything  but  that." 

She  went  to  work  in  silence. 

"Mr.  Stanton,  you  are  getting  thin," 
remarked  Mrs.  Kent  abruptly.  "  That  do- 
mestic experiment  will  ruin  your  health. 
Aren't  you  tired  of  it  ? " 

"  It  palls,  at  times,"  he  confessed. 

"And  isn't  your  night  school  wearing 
on  you  ? " 

"  It  takes  some  strength  from  my  work, 
but  I  expected  that." 

"  How  beautifully  our  various  efforts  neu- 
tralize each  other,"  said  Anne  pensively. 
"  That  lecturing  keeps  you  from  painting 
more  symbolic  pictures." 

"Thank  you,"  said  Howard.     "  No,  Mrs. 


H2  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

Kent,  my  work  does  not  suffer  much.  And 
I  have  made  a  deliberate  choice.  I  simply 
cannot  bury  myself  in  art  dreams  in  a 
world  so  full  of  suffering  and  ignorance 
and  crime." 

"  I  don't  see,"  said  Anne  crossly,  from 
her  corner,  "  why  I've  always  been  cursed 
with  a  desire  to  do  my  own  work.  Life  is 
so  short,  and  the  evenings  come  so  soon. 
How  can  we  be  acquitted  if  we  do  other 
people's  tasks,  and  leave  undone  our  own  ? 
It  seems  to  me  as  if  nowadays  everybody 
is  so  bored  with  his  own  life  that  he  wants 
to  live  somebody  else's  life." 

"  Oh,"  cried  Helen.     "  Don't  say  that !  " 

"  It  isn't  that,"  said  Howard.  "  People 
are  just  trying  to  forget  their  own  de- 
mands." 

"  A  deliberate  determination  to  forget 
yourself  amounts  to  a  deliberate  determi- 
nation to  remember,"  Anne  remarked  sen- 
tentiously.  "  I  suppose  that  I  am  mean 
and  selfish  and  unenlightened,"  she  added, 
clenching  her  little  hand  ;  "  but  I'd  rather 
be  able  to  paint  well  those  wrinkles  around 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  113 

my  old  sailor's  eyes,  than  to  teach  all  the 
masses  in  the  world  how  to  draw." 

"You  don't  love  human  nature  enough," 
said  Howard. 

"  You  don't  love  it  enough  to  paint  it  as 
it  is,"  Anne  retorted.  "  All  your  idealism 
is  made  up  of  disrespect  for  the  facts  of 
life." 


CHAPTER   XV 

HOWARD  STANTON  strode  into  the  As- 
syrian room  at  the  Art  Museum.  In  one 
corner  stood  Anne,  studying  a  relief.  She 
turned  and  faced  him. 

"  I  see  where  you  got  your  ideas  of 
perspective,"  she  remarked  impertinently, 
pointing  to  the  feet  of  an  Assyrian  king. 

"Nannie,"  said  the  young  man,  "you 
have  abused  me  too  much  to  send  me 
away  now.  You " 

"  Let's  talk  about  the  weather,"  sug- 
gested Anne. 

"I  should  not  speak  of  this  again,"  he 
protested^  "if  I  did  not  know  that  you 
really  do  care  for  me." 

"  I  never  said  that  I  did  not." 

"  Then  why  won't  you  accept  the  logical 
consequences  ?  " 

"  Because  I  do  not  care  enough.  I 
know  that  my  nature  could  be  stirred 
more  deeply." 

114 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  1 1 5 

"  Are  you  quite  sure  ?  " 

"  Quite,"  Anne  replied  mendaciously. 
"  Howard,  will  you  do  something  for 
me  ?  " 

"Anything  in  the  world." 

"  Change  the  subject." 

"  Oh,"  he  said  with  regret.  "  That  is 
the  one  thing  in  the  world  that  I  cannot 
do  for  you." 

"  Down  under  all  your  altruism,"  Anne 
remarked,  "  I  detect  the  primal  selfish- 
ness of  man." 

They  were  in  the  Early  Greek  room. 
Apollo  looked  down  at  them  with  his 
archaic  smile. 

"  Moreover,"  Anne  continued,  "  I  am 
not  sure  of  you." 

"  I  should  think  that  you  might  be  sure 
by  this  time ! "  cried  the  young  man  hotly. 
"  Will  fifty  years  of  waiting  convince  you 
better  than  twenty-five  have  done,  of  my 
steadfastness  ?" 

"  There  has  always  been,"  said  Anne 
impressively,  "a  kind  of  spiritual  incon- 
stancy about  you.  Ever  since  you  were 


n6  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

a  boy  your  soul  has  fluttered  from  one 
ideal  to  another.  You  could  never  make 
a  complete  surrender  to  anything.  Isn't 
this  latest  theory  a  kind  of  escape  from 
complete  devotion  to  your  art  ?  It  seems 
to  me  an  excuse  for  your  temperament." 

The  young  man  grew  pale. 

"I've  been  pretty  constant  to  one  thing," 
he  said.  "  My  surrender  to  you  has  been 
too  complete  for  my  own  good." 

"  That's  the  reason  why  I  won't  give  up. 
One  can  be  constant  only  to  the  unattain- 
able. I  don't  wish  to  be  numbered  among 
your  achievements." 

"  I  consider  that  very  feminine  and  very 
young,"  Howard  remarked.  "  Haven't  I 
worked  pretty  hard  over  my  successive 
enthusiasms  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  Anne  admitted,  "  you  have  a 
strong  will,  only  there  is  something  be- 
hind it  that  —  wobbles.  Now  I  must  go 
away.  Mrs.  Kent  is  waiting  for  me." 

"  I  sha'n't  forget  that  you  said  you  like 
me." 

"  If   I   liked   you  enough,"    said    Anne 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  1 1 7 

earnestly,  "my  whole  soul  and  strength 
and  devotion  would  go  out  to  you.  I 
should  lose  myself  in  you." 

"The  trouble  with  you,  Nannie,  is  that 
you  are  clinging  to  the  notion  of  some 
supernatural  kind  of  love.  You  can't  see 
the  worth  of  the  love  you  have.  If  you 
don't  find  the  ideal  in  the  actual,  you 
won't  find  it  at  all." 

"  I  wish  you  would  carry  that  idea  into 
your  painting,"  Anne  remarked,  as  she 
left  the  room. 

"  I  wish  you  would  carry  your  idea  of 
painting  into  your  life,"  retorted  Howard. 

Anne  found  Mrs.  Kent  standing  by  a 
cast  of  a  Templar's  tomb. 

"What  is  the  matter  ? "  she  asked  when 
she  saw  the  girl's  face. 

"  Nothing ;  only,  isn't  life  puzzling  enough 
without  mixing  it  up  with  love  ? " 

"  Puzzling  ?  I  thought  you  said  that 
one  could  understand  the  whole  by  look- 
ing on." 

"  Nobody  can  understand  anything," 
Anne  remarked  crossly. 


n8  A   Puritan  Bohemia 

"  Why  don't  you  give  up  ? " 

"  Because,"  murmured  the  girl,  touching 
the  crossed  feet  of  the  warrior,  "  I  haven't 
worked  and  planned  and  hoped  for  that  all 
my  life.  I  have  something  else  to  do." 

"You  might  do  your  work  better." 

"Don't  say  that.  It  is  commonplace, 
and  besides,  it  isn't  true.  You  can  learn 
better  by  seeing  and  not  sharing.  Your 
feeling  of  the  beauty  and  the  worth  and 
the  hurt  of  things  is  all  the  keener  for  the 
sense  of  lack.  What  man  wants  is  better 
in  art  than  what  man  has." 

"Queer  sentiments  for  a  realist,"  re- 
marked Mrs.  Kent. 

"There  is  a  kind  of  irony  about  the 
whole  thing,  if  you  are  right.  Those  who 
have  the  experience  can't  use  it  in  art, 
and  those  who  pursue  art  haven't  the  ex- 
perience. The  two  are  indispensable  and 
incompatible.  Anyway,  I  am  not  like 
that." 

"Like  what?" 

"The  cold-blooded  young  woman  who 
worships  an  art-ideal  and  crushes  her  heart. 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  119 

She  never  existed  anyway  outside  of  a 
story-book.  I  simply  don't  like  Howard 
enough  —  for  that." 

The  two  friends  were  walking  slowly 
through  the  great  deserted  rooms. 

"  How  do  you  know  ?  " 

"  If  I  did  I  should  be  satisfied.  Love  is 
the  one  thing  in  which  there  should  be  no 
doubts." 

A  queer  look  came  into  Mrs.  Kent's  face. 

"  That  is  very  foolish.  Do  you  mean 
that  you,  like  the  old  novel-writers,  think 
of  love  as  one  long,  untroubled,  mutual 
spasm  ? " 

"  I  sha'n't  tell,"  answered  Anne,  laughing. 

" '  He  clasped  her  in  his  arms  in  one 
long  ecstasy  '  no  longer  serves  as  a  solution 
of  that  problem.  Don't  let  a  Fireside  Com- 
panion ideal  keep  you  from  the  happiness 
of  your  life." 

"  I've  never  seen  the  Fireside  Compan- 
ion" Anne  remarked  loftily. 

"Neither  have  I,"  said  Mrs.  Kent  with 
a  smile.  "  Intellectual  women  are  queer. 
You  are  twenty-seven  years  old,  but  in 


I2O  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

some  ways  you  aren't  seventeen.  You 
must  not  carry  a  child's  notion  of  absolute 
surety  into  the  life  of  a  grown-up  woman." 

"  But  I  chose  my  work,"  persisted  Anne. 
"I  haven't  time  for  luxuries." 

"Love  is  not  an  indulgence,"  said  Mrs. 
Kent  severely.  "  It  is  a  life-long  battle. 
It  is  an  agony,  a  doubt,  a  temptation,  per- 
haps a  triumph.  It  is  no  easy  way  of 
escape,  but  the  hardest  road,  and  the  sweet- 
est, that  human  feet  can  tread." 

Anne's  fingers  reached  out  and  touched 
the  soft  black  veil. 

"It  is  too  hard,"  she  whispered. 

"No,"  said  Mrs.  Kent  slowly,  "it  is  not 
too  hard.  It  is  good  to  know  the  larger 
meanings  of  life,  even  if  they  must  be 
learned  with  many  tears.  One  learns  all 
through  love,  except  what  has  to  be  learned 
through  death.  It  gives  one  the  keys  to 
everything,  the  lives  of  saints,  the  lives 
of  sinful  men  and  women  too. 

"  Listen.  When  I  was  a  girl  I,  too,  was 
puzzled  vaguely  about  everything.  Then 
suddenly  love  came.  But  the  old  doubts 


A   Puritan   Bohemia  121 

haunted  me,  and  the  fear  that  love  would 
slip  away  walked  with  me.  Life  was  more 
bitter  and  life  was  more  sweet  because  of 
love,  and  it  was  harder  still  to  understand. 

"  I  was  married  just  three  years.  They 
were  years  of  great  joy  and  great  pain.  I 
used  to  say  that  I  was  in  the  corner  of 
paradise  that  was  hard  by  hell.  Then  a 
day  came  when  they  told  me  that  my  little 
child  was  dead.  His  father  died  next  day. 

"  It  was  a  bitter  lesson.  I  am  only  now 
beginning  to  see  that  when  one  is  too 
happy,  or  too  unhappy,  or  both,  to  care 
about  other  people,  God  finds  a  way  to 
make  one  care.  Perhaps,  if  one  learns 
only  half  of  one's  lesson  in  the  morning, 
one  is  always  set  to  learn  the  other  half  in 
the  afternoon." 

They  left  the  Museum  in  silence.  Out- 
side, the  frosty  dust,  blown  high  into  the 
air,  was  turning  gold-colour  in  the  light  of 
the  sun.  The  one  Florentine  spire  of  the 
city  stood  gray  against  the  sky.  Through 
its  delicate  traceries  shone  the  yellow  of 
the  west. 


122  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

"  It  is  because  love  is  the  surest  way  of 
forgetting  one's  self,"  said  Mrs.  Kent, 
"  that  I  want  you  to  know  it.  Marriage  is 
self-abnegation " 

"Marriage,  as  I  have  observed  it,  is 
mostly  co-operative  selfishness,"  inter- 
rupted Anne.  "The  trouble  is,  we  are 
talking  as  if  this  were  an  abstract  question. 
In  reality  there  aren't  any  abstract  ques- 
tions, only  individual  problems.  I  cannot 
consent  to  marry  the  wrong  man  because 
marriage  in  general  is  a  good  thing !  " 

She  looked  reproachfully  at  Mrs.  Kent, 
as  they  parted  at  the  door  of  the  studio 
building. 

"  Even  you  have  deserted  me.  I've  no 
one  to  stand  by  me  but  myself.  I'm  not 
an  English  princess ;  I'm  not  a  favourite 
of  the  Sultan,  and  I  won't  be  married 
unless  I  want  to." 

Anne  climbed  the  stairs  wearily.  Once 
she  stopped,  and  put  her  head  down  on 
the  railing. 

"Oh,  I  wish  I  did  care!"  she  said,  half 
aloud.  "I  wish  I  could!" 


CHAPTER   XVI 

"  HE  did,  Miss  Helen.  I  heard  him  say 
it  just  as  plain.  He  was  coming  through 
the  hall,  and  it  was  dark,  and  he  didn't 
see  me.  An'  he  said,  '  O  my  Amanda, 
how  smoothly  must  that  life  glide  in 
whose  destiny  you  share  ! ' ' 

"'Amanda'?" 

The  old,  puzzled  look  came  into  Anna- 
bel's eyes.  She  wriggled  in  her  chair. 

"  No,  he  said  '  Helen.'  He  was  talking 
about  you." 

The  child  felt  encouraged  by  the  silence 
that  followed. 

"  He  said  some  more,"  she  remarked 
suggestively. 

Miss  Wistar  was  tempted,  and  she  fell. 

"What?" 

"  He  said,  '  I  shall  suffer  a  trembling 
apprehension  until  I  call  you  mine.' " 

Helen  laughed,  wondering  where  the 
child  had  found  the  absurd  phrases.  Was 
123 


124  A   Puritan  Bohemia 

there  a  basis  of  fact  for  the  palpable  fic- 
tion ?  Helen  had  never  read  "The  Chil- 
dren of  the  Abbey." 

"  Annabel,"  said  the  young  teacher 
severely,  a  minute  later,  "  are  you  telling 
me  the  truth  ? " 

"  I  thought  that  was  what  he  said," 
answered  Annabel  mournfully.  "  I  didn't 
hear  it  all.  Anyhow,  I  often  hear  him 
talking  to  your  picture." 

Miss  Wistar's  mouth  was  more  stern 
than  her  eyes. 

"Mr.  Stanton  hasn't  my  picture.  He 
couldn't  possibly  have  it  unless  I  gave  it 
to  him." 

The  child  hesitated  for  a  minute.  When 
she  spoke,  her  voice  almost  carried  convic- 
tion to  herself  as  well  as  to  Miss  Wistar. 

"He  painted  it,  I  guess.  It's  a  little  bit  of 
a  one.  I  see  it  every  morning  when  I  dust." 

Life  had  begun  to  play  havoc  with 
Helen's  work.  Her  mission  turned  into  a 
long  reverie.  When  she  drew,  her  fingers 
trembled.  Then  she  stopped  and  watched- 
the  sunshine,  her  eyes  full  of  dreams. 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  125 

Yet  her  wish  to  know  women  who  toiled 
for  art  was  being  slowly  fulfilled.  She  had 
watched  them  in  public  places,  or  at  their 
windows  in  the  Square,  talking,  two  and 
two,  as  they  slowly  rocked.  Now  she 
learned  something  of  the  inner  conditions 
of  their  life.  Some  lived  in  daintily  fur- 
nished suites  ;  others,  in  sky-parlours, 
lunching,  perhaps,  on  doughnuts,  two  for 
five  cents.  All  were  nomadic,  increas- 
ingly distrustful  of  boarding-houses,  un- 
certain where  to  dine.  Tangent-wise  they 
touched  the  life  of  the  world  beyond  the 
Square,  going  out  now  and  then  to  dinners 
or  receptions. 

Their  generous  comradeship  impressed 
the  girl.  They  shared  one  another's  hard- 
ships, criticised  one  another's  pictures,  cor- 
rected one  another's  proof.  Helen  heard 
them  quarrelling  generously  at  luncheon 
time  over  which  should  have  the  smaller 
bit  of  steak,  which  should  pay  the  uneven 
cent.  Strong  friendships  formed  a  part 
of  the  courage  with  which  these  women 
faced  the  thought  of  a  lonely  age,  when 


126  A   Puritan  Bohemia 

they  should  perhaps  have  nothing  left  — 
but  a  point  of  view. 

Helen  made  a  half-dozen  acquaintances 
among  the  women  of  the  Rembrandt  Stu- 
dios, and  in  doing  so  learned  a  half-dozen 
tragedies.  Each  had  "had  a  history"; 
each  had  taken  refuge  in  some  new  belief. 

In  Number  12  lived  a  plump  and  jovial 
little  lady  who  owned  a  pet  monkey  named 
the  Czar.  The  Czar  was  the  terror  of  the 
building.  His  mistress  was  not  an  heroic 
figure,  yet  for  twenty  years  she  had  been 
toiling  to  pay  the  debts  of  a  worthless 
brother,  and  so  save  the  family  from  dis- 
grace. 

She  was  a  Christian  Scientist. 

The  Theosophist  was  a  slim  maiden  lady 
who  did  flowers  in  water  colour.  Hers  was 
the  tragedy  of  not  having  been  called  upon 
to  suffer.  All  the  pathos  of  protracted  girl- 
hood was  in  that  air,  as  of  one  who  has  not 
arrived,  yet  is  not  pursuing,  only  waiting. 

For  the  owner  of  Number  2  art  meant  a 
faithless  husband.  She  had  found  conso- 
lation in  Astrology. 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  127 

There  was  a  Whitmanite  who  did  huge 
landscapes.  The  short-haired  girl  who  as- 
pired to  be  an  animal  sculptor  was  a  fol- 
lower of  Ibsen.  She  talked  much  of  the 
emancipation  of  woman  from  domestic  life. 
Sometimes,  as  she  toiled  with  wet  clay,  she 
wiped  a  tear  away  from  her  cheek  with  her 
short  coat-sleeve.  She  was  thinking  of  her 
dead  lover. 

The  Baroness  was  the  only  inhabitant  of 
this  world  of  definite  work  and  vague  spir- 
itual enthusiasms  who  had  not  a  pet  notion. 
The  Baroness  made  beautiful  embroidery. 

Helen  learned  much  from  these  women. 
There  were  questions  of  vast  import  to 
discuss  :  how  to  make  drapery  out  of  fish- 
nets ;  how  to  convert  the  lower  part  of  a 
book-case  into  a  pantry  ;  how  to  make  ball- 
costumes  out  of  Japanese  crepe  paper ;  how 
to  know  when  Welsh  rabbit  was  done. 

In  return  Helen  taught  them  her  views. 

"  What  does  Miss  Wistar  mean  by  call- 
ing herself  a  Socialist  ? "  the  Christian 
Scientist  asked  one  day  of  Anne  Brad- 
ford 


128  A   Puritan   Bohemia 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Anne.  "  Neither 
does  she." 

"  She  said,"  continued  the  owner  of  the 
Czar,  puckering  her  plump  forehead,  "that 
she  could  not  conceive  of  Christianity 
apart  from  Socialism." 

Anne  only  laughed. 

Helen  found  her  relations  with  these 
women  less  simple  than  she  had  expected. 
She  had  a  puzzled  feeling  that  her  pity  for 
them  was  met  by  an  answering  pity  for  her. 
In  their  definiteness  of  aim  was  a  certain 
rebuke.  The  only  thing  about  her  that 
they  thoroughly  appreciated  was  the  col- 
our of  her  hair. 

"  I  am  sorry  for  that  child,"  said  the 
Astrologist  to  Mrs.  Kent.  "  She  is  so 
young  and  rash.  She  has  so  much  to 
learn." 

"  Helen  isn't  accustomed  to  think  that 
it  is  the  young  who  have  much  to  learn," 
answered  Mrs.  Kent. 

The  boyish  sculptor  of  animals  said  that 
Miss  Wistar  did  not  know  where  she 
was  at. 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  129 

In  despair  Helen  went  one  March  after- 
noon to  Mrs.  Kent  to  ask  why  all  that 
she  tried  to  grasp  slipped  so  persistently 
through  her  fingers.  As  she  crossed  the 
Square  she  watched  the  naked  branches 
of  the  trees,  sharply  outlined  against  the 
red  brick  walls  where  the  late  sun  was 
shining.  In  Mrs.  Kent's  window  stood  a 
jar  of  golden  daffodils.  Helen  caught  a 
glimpse  of  a  slender  hand  and  a  bit  of 
black  sleeve. 

"  Shall  I  tell  you  what  I  really  think  ? " 
asked  Mrs.  Kent,  when  she  had  heard  the 
girl's  complaint.  Helen  had  buried  her 
face  among  the  pillows  on  the  lounge.  "  I 
think  that  you  are  taking  the  wrong  road. 
There  is  only  one  way  of  entering  people's 
lives.  That  is  by  sharing  the  common  ex- 
perience. This  external  way  of  trying  to 
help  will  never  make  you  understand. 
One  must  share  life  itself,  the  joy  of  it, 
the  pain  of  it,  if  one  is  to  know.  'He 
that  entereth  not  in  by  the  door  of  the 
sheepfold,  but  climbeth  up  some  other 
way '" 


130  A   Puritan  Bohemia 

Helen  started  to  speak,  but  paused. 
She  could  not  explain. 

Mrs.  Kent  laid  her  hand  on  the  girl's 
bright  hair. 

"  Haven't  you  run  away  from  the  one 
school  where  you  can  learn  to  be  of  use 
to  your  world  ?  It  is  only  through  love 
and  its  responsibilities  that  one  can  help. 
They  tell  me  that  you  cannot  conceive  of 
Christianity  except  from  Socialism.  Can 
you  conceive  of  Christianity  that  does  not 
involve  doing  your  duty  to  your  own 
people  ? " 

For  wounds  like  these  there  was  balm 
in  Howard  Stanton's  occasional  remarks. 

"  I  can't  tell  you  how  I  value  your 
sympathy,"  he  said  one  day.  "There  are 
so  few  people  who  understand." 

These  sayings  mingled  in  Helen's  mind 
with  Annabel's  queer  romancing.  It  was 
small  wonder  that  she  more  than  half 
believed  the  child. 


CHAPTER   XVII 

IT  was  almost  spring.  The  florists' 
windows  were  full  of  yellow  primroses,  of 
hyacinths,  of  blood-red  tulips.  Sunshades 
and  dimity  gowns  appeared  in  the  dry- 
goods  shops.  In  the  street,  a  vender's 
cry  of  "  Strawberries,  fresh  strawberries  !  " 
floated  across  fast-falling  snow. 

The  annual  March  exhibition  of  the 
Art  Club  opened  to-day.  Pieces  of  clever 
work  covered  the  walls  of  the  club-rooms. 
There  were  landscapes,  seascapes,  faces, 
figures,  interiors.  A  white  Indian  mosque 
jostled  the  corner  of  an  old  New  England 
garden  ;  a  view  of  Siberian  convict  life,  in 
the  style  of  Verestschagin,  rested  by  the 
portrait  of  an  anaemic  woman,  painted  in 
the  manner  of  Whistler ;  and  a  daring 
study  (inspired  by  Zorn)  of  six  people  in 
a  theatre  box,  full  in  the  glare  of  electric 
light,  hung  close  to  Anne  Bradford's  tiny 
picture  of  the  old  sailor. 

In  most  of  the  work  a  mannerism  was 


132  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

apparent,  a  touch  of  impressionism,  some 
trick  of  colour.  American  art,  as  repre- 
sented here,  betrayed  an  eclecticism,  a 
lack  of  standard,  of  conviction.  Skill  in 
drawing  was  less  important  than  a  certain 
dash  in  laying  on  colour  and  in  making 
bold  outlines. 

All  day,  people  streamed  up  the  steps 
and  through  the  broad  doors  of  the  club- 
house. Carriages  blocked  the  street.  El- 
derly ladies  from  Riverside  Bank  panted 
up  the  steps.  Art  students  from  the  West 
End  scrutinized,  praised,  and  blamed. 
Amateur  critics  looked  knowingly  through 
half-shut  eyes,  and  spoke  in  disparage- 
ment, fearful  of  approving  something  that 
another  might  condemn. 

Helen  came  very  early,  in  her  little 
worn  jacket  and  the  old  bonnet.  Howard 
Stanton  accompanied  her.  They  climbed 
the  steps  in  eager  excitement,  and  pushed 
almost  rudely  through  the  crowd  to  find 
the  picture. 

"  Oh ! "  said  Howard  with  a  sigh  of 
satisfaction.  "  That's  great !  " 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  133 

In  the  choicest  bit  of  wall-space,  just 
opposite  the  entrance  to  the  inner  room, 
hung  "Art  and  Need."  Something  in  its 
style  had  impressed  strongly  the  presiding 
committee.  They  had  given  it  a  place  of 
honour.  Anne  Bradford's  little  picture 
had  been  assigned  to  the  darkest  corner. 

Coming  in  from  the  outer  room,  one 
saw  "Art  and  Need"  full  in  the  light  of 
the  roof-window,  a  miracle  of  opalescent 
colour,  with  the  beautiful  sleeping  woman 
in  the  shadow  of  suggested  trees.  Even 
the  hands  and  the  arms  were  drowsy,  and 
the  white  fingers  slept. 

Helen  gazed  in  silence.  People  crowded 
past,  pushed  her  hat  awry,  stepped  on  her 
foot,  but  she  did  not  know  it.  Her  eyes 
were  moist  when  she  raised  them  to 
Howard  Stanton's. 

"  I  am  so  glad  !  "  she  whispered. 

He  bent  his  head  to  listen,  and  laughed 
excitedly. 

"  It's  rather  better  than  I  expected,  as  the 
old  gentleman  said  when  he  went  to  heaven. 
Won't  you  come  over  here  and  sit  down  ?  " 


134  A   Puritan  Bohemia 

He  found  a  chair  for  Helen,  and  stood 
leaning  over  the  back. 

The  artist  had  been  right.  His  picture 
meant  many  things  to  many  people. 

"  It  must  be  Cleopatra,"  said  one  lady, 
who  had  not  examined  the  catalogue. 

"  Or  fair  Rosamond  in  her  bower,"  sug- 
gested her  companion. 

"And  that  little  dark  figure?"  asked 
the  first  speaker. 

"  Maybe  that's  Cleopatra's  conscience," 
laughed  the  other.  "  It  ought  to  be  called 
'The  Queen's  Nightmare.' ' 

Just  here  a  tall  girl  with  a  Burne-Jones 
profile  drifted  past.  She  cast  a  long  and 
intense  look  upon  the  picture. 

"It  is  an  annunciation,"  she  said,  "in 
modern  style.  The  little  brown  figure  is 
an  angel  in  disguise." 

"  How  can  they  be  so  stupid  ? "  asked 
Helen,  looking  up.  Howard  only  chuckled. 
Once  he  laughed  outright.  The  great 
Leighton  Reynolds,  white-haired  dictator 
in  this  little  world  of  art,  paused  before 
the  picture. 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  135 

"  Here's  an  artist,"  he  remarked,  "  whose 
contempt  for  nature  is  apparently  not  the 
result  of  familiarity." 

The  artist  and  his  model  waited  in 
silence,  watching  the  spectators.  Few 
people  noticed  them.  A  fellow-artist, 
coming  up  to  congratulate  Mr.  Stanton, 
detected  the  slight  resemblance  between 
Miss  Wistar  and  the  half-averted  face  in 
the  picture,  and  felt  wise. 

"  I  don't  care  what  the  result  is,"  Howard 
said  at  last,  breaking  a  long  pause.  "  I 
have  put  the  very  best  of  myself  into  that 
work." 

His  seriousness  deepened  the  note  of 
generalized  tenderness  in  his  voice.  Helen 
had  before  mistaken  a  physical  character- 
istic for  emotion. 

"  All  my  hold  on  life  is  in  that  face.  It 
stands  for  my  entire  aspiration,  my  ulti- 
mate hope." 

Helen  looked  up  quickly.  She  thought 
that  Mr.  Stanton  was  speaking  about  her. 
One  little  gloved  hand  slipped  out  toward 
him,  but  he  did  not  see  it.  His  eyes 


136  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

were  fixed  upon  the  picture.  He  was 
thinking  about  the  allegory. 

Helen  drew  her  hand  back  in  shame. 

"  Of  course  he  can't  say  more,"  she 
thought,  "while  I  am  alone  and  so  far 
away  from  home." 

Her  hero-worship  deepened  in  fervour. 

"  If  it  had  not  been  for  you,  Miss 
Wistar,"  her  master  was  saying,  "  I  should 
not  have  had  the  courage  to  go  on.  You 
make  a  man  believe  in  himself.  But  look 
here,"  he  added  rudely,  "we  haven't 
thought  about  Miss  Bradford's  old  sailor. 
Where  is  he?" 

Patient  search  revealed  the  picture  in 
the  corner. 

"  It's  a  beastly  shame,"  said  Howard 
Stanton  fiercely.  "  They've  hung  no  end 
of  trash  in  better  places." 

As  they  turned  to  go  a  plump  old  gen- 
tleman crowded  past  them,  panting  in  his 
efforts  to  reach  the  centre.  He  caught 
'sight  of  the  symbolic  picture,  and  exam- 
ined the  catalogue  in  wonder.  Then  he 
put  a  glass  to  one  eye,  and  gazed. 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  137 

"  Art  and  Need  !  Art  and  Need  !  "  he 
stormed.  "  A  yellow  woman  and  blue 
grass  and  a  purple  boy  !  Art  and  need  of 
common  sense,  I  should  say  !  " 

The  artist  and  his  model  came  away  in 
a  fit  of  childish  laughter. 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

SOMETHING  unexpected  happened.  Anne 
Bradford,  corning  home  late  one  afternoon, 
stopped  by  the  mail-box  to  open  a  letter 
and  to  tear  off  the  cover  of  a.  new  number 
of  Art  and  Life.  In  the  leading  article 
she  caught  sight  of  her  own  name,  and  she 
sat  down  on  the  stairs  with  a  little  gasp. 

The  critic  described  her  picture  at  the 
Art  Club  exhibition.  It  was  only  an 
unpretentious  study,  he  said,  of  an  old 
sailor.  There  was  a  pathetic  quiver  in 
the  wrinkled  lip.  This  was  a  sad  ending 
for  a  life  spent  on  the  high  seas.  The 
critic  praised  the  peculiar  faithfulness  to 
detail,  combined  with  a  poetic  inspiration. 
This  carefulness  of  workmanship  was  re- 
freshing after  the  high-handed  methods  of 
the  impressionists,  symbolists,  sensation- 
alists. Perhaps  this  was  one  of  the  wel- 
come signs  of  a  coming  reaction. 

A  few  days  later  Miss  Bradford  received 
138 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  139 

•  a  note  from  the  secretary  of  the  Hague 
Art  Club.  Their  exhibition  was  to  open 
in  a  few  days.  Usually  only  the  work  of 
club  members  was  exhibited.  The  excep- 
tional praise  given  to  Miss  Bradford  in  the 
April  number  of  Art  and  Life  made  the 
members  of  the  club  desirous  of  seeing 
more  of  her  work.  Would  she  do  them 
the  honour  of  sending  two  pictures  to 
their  exhibition  ? 

Anne  read  the  letter  with  an  unmoved 
face,  then  put  it  down  on  the  cherry  desk 
and  looked  at  it. 

"  It  seems  utterly  impossible,"  she  said, 
touching  the  envelope  caressingly.  Then 
she  laughed. 

"  I  believe  that  I  have  a  feeling  of 
deeper  sentiment  about  that  type-written 
communication  than  I've  ever  had  about 
any  concrete  thing  before.  Think  what 
it  means !  " 

Two  weeks  later  a  long  article  about 
Miss  Bradford's  work  appeared  in  The 
Continent,  one  of  the  city  dailies.  It 
was  entitled,  "A  New  Realism."  The 


140  A  Puritan   Bohemia 

critic  was  apparently  excited.  He  called 
upon  his  readers  to  see  how  unique  this 
work  was.  What  technique !  What  sen- 
timent !  Here  the  accuracy  of  the  realist 
was  combined  with  the  sentiment  of  the 
symbolist.  (The  art-critic  on  The  Con- 
tinent was  also  literary  critic  for  The 
Spectator).  In  these  pictures  one  saw 
not  only  a  new  style  but  a  new  inspiration. 
Here  was  an  interpretation  of  life. 

"There  is  a  certain  quaintness  in  the 
work,"  the  critic  said.  "  Under  all  the 
traces  of  human  suffering  (note  Miss  Brad- 
ford's rendering  of  wrinkles)  there  is  a 
deep,  inextinguishable  joy  in  living.  These 
are  faces  of  those  scarred  in  battle,  yet 
glad  of  the  fight.  It  is  a  realism  that  is 
both  joyous  and  spiritual." 

"  Permit  me,"  said  Howard  Stanton, 
taking  off  his  hat  with  a  profound  bow 
when  he  met  Anne  in  the  street  the  next 
day,  "  to  salute  the  founder  of  a  new  school. 
I'm  very  sorry  for  you,"  he  added,  a 
minute  later.  "What  will  you  have  to 
fight  with  now?" 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  141 

There  was  a  reaction  from  the  passion 
for  symbolism  which  had  already  lasted 
several  weeks.  Miss  Bradford's  work  and 
that  of  a  young  Danish  realist  became  the 
fashion. 

Anne  hardly  realized  her  success  until, 
among  her  notes  of  congratulation,  she 
found  a  line  from  the  great  Leighton 
Reynolds. 

"  You  have  style,"  he  said.  "  I  find  a 
certain  force  in  your  pictures  unusual  in 
feminine  work." 

Anne  felt  stunned.  She  decided  to  go 
for  a  walk.  Passing  down  the  old  familiar 
streets,  she  asked  herself  sadly  if  she  were 
too  old  to  care.  Surely  this  praise  meant 
the  confirmation  of  the  hope  for  which  she 
had  spent  her  life. 

She  was  walking  in  the  direction  of  the 
tenement-house  district.  Here  was  the 
corner  where  the  thought  of  the  sailor's 
picture  had  flashed  upon  her.  A  little 
farther  was  the  crumbling  wall  that  had 
served  as  a  background  for  the  Italian 
mother  with  her  baby.  Her  work  was 


142  A   Puritan  Bohemia 

everywhere.  She  had  beaten  out  her 
ideas  with  her  footfalls.  Now  her  prayer 
had  been  granted,  and  she  felt  only  this 
creeping  numbness. 

Climbing  the  hill  to  the  old  burying- 
ground,  she  found  herself  giving  an  ex- 
ultant little  laugh.  Then  her  knees 
trembled,  and  it  became  hard  to  walk. 
She  grasped  the  churchyard  railing,  and 
leaned  her  forehead  against  the  iron.  Oh, 
she  did  care !  She  had  created  something 
that  seemed  to  live.  She  had  justified  her 
existence. 

As  she  walked  home,  she  saw  that  the 
tops  of  the  willows  in  the  park  were  yellow. 
The  sky  wore  the  expectant  blue  of  early 
spring. 

The  mood  of  exultation  lasted  nearly  a 
week.  Anne  had  to  adjust  life  to  a  new 
emotion.  She  had  accepted  failure.  Her 
whole  life  had  been  in  accord  with  that. 
Now  a  sudden  change  had  proved  her  old 
reckonings  false.  She  must  learn  to  ac- 
cept success 

Mrs.  Kent  was  filled  with  pride.     Helen, 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  143 

too,  was  pleased,  but  puzzled.  Anne  won- 
dered why  Howard  had  deserted  her  at 
this  moment.  She  had  not  seen  him  for 
a  week.  It  was  Annabel  who  solved  the 
mystery. 

"  Mr.  Stanton's  got  measles,"  she  said 
with  an  important  air.  "  My  little  brother 
had  'em,  and  my  mamma  said,  two  weeks 
ago,  that  Mr.  Stanton  had  sympathies  of 
'em." 

"  Measles  !  "  gasped  Anne. 

"My  mamma  takes  care  of  him.  It's 
very  hard  work.  Sometimes  "  —  Anna- 
bel's eyes  gleamed  — "  he's  out  of  his 
head,  an'  then  he  talks  about  Miss 
Wistar.  He  called  her  a  angel  the  other 
day." 

There  was  no  way  of  helping. 

"I  can't  go  to  carry  him  quivering  jel- 
lies on  a  tray,  as  young  ladies  do  in  Eng- 
lish stories,"  said  Anne  lightly.  "Think 
of  that  lofty  head  laid  low  by  measles  !  " 

She  turned  to  her  work.  After  three 
days  of  struggle,  she  put  her  brushes 
away.  A  great  unrest  possessed  her. 


144  A   Puritan  Bohemia 

"  I  can't  do  it !  "  she  said  mournfully. 
"I'm  spoiled  by  compliments." 

Her  fingers  were  like  lead.  The  joy  in 
creating  was  gone.  She  sat  one  day  on  a 
hassock  in  the  centre  of  her  room.  On 
the  floor  lay  the  three  pictures  that  had 
won  her  world  for  her.  Anne  examined 
them  with  unfriendly  eyes. 

"  Howard  is  right,"  she  said  dejectedly, 
"  but  I  wouldn't  tell  him  so.  They  call 
this  realism,  but  it  isn't.  I'm  an  impostor. 
It's  nothing  but  distance  from  the  hard- 
ships of  living  that  lends  enchantment  to 
my  rendering  of  life." 

"  What  is  the  matter  ? "  asked  Mrs. 
Kent,  coming  in  half  an  hour  later.  Anne 
was  still  upon  the  hassock,  her  chin  rest- 
ing in  the  hollow  of  her  hand. 

"  My  courage  has  given  out,"  said  Anne, 
rising.  "  I'd  give  back  all  my  success  for 
any  one  of  my  old  illusions  about  it." 
Her  laugh  had  a  note  of  pathos  in  it. 
"  There  was  a  certain  inspiration  in  fail- 
ure, but  I  can't  bear  up  under  approval. 
I  shall  never  do  any  more  good  work." 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  145 

"  That  doesn't  sound  like  you." 

"  Giving  you  at  twenty-seven  what  at 
twenty  you  wanted  and  could  not  have," 
Anne  continued,  "  is  adding  insult  to  in- 
jury. It  is  like  granting  the  refused  per- 
mission to  go  to  the  matinee  after  the  play 
is  all  over.  You  have  none  of  the  benefit 
of  consistent  discipline,  and  yet  none  of 
the  fun." 

"  But  giving  you  at  twenty-seven  what 
at  twenty-five  you  had  not  earned,"  said 
Mrs.  Kent  with  deliberation,  "is  very  dif- 
ferent, and  quite  as  much  as  you  de- 
serve." 

"  There's  truth  in  that,"  Anne  answered 
meekly  ;  "  only  I  liked  doing  my  work  bet- 
ter than  I  like  listening  to  all  this  talk 
about  it." 

"  There  speaks  the  artist !  "  said  Mrs. 
Kent.  "  Be  comforted,  my  child.  There 
is  undoubtedly  enough  failure  in  store 
for  you  in  the  future  to  keep  up  your 
spirits." 

The  next  morning  Anne  drooped  over 
her  breakfast. 


146  A   Puritan  Bohemia 

"  The  glamour  has  departed  from  Bohe- 
mia," she  said,  looking  sadly  at  her  china. 
"  A  teacup  is  only  a  teacup  now,  and  it  is 
nothing  more." 

The  studio  looked  dingy  and  full  of  cob- 
webs. The  marmalade  was  sticky. 

Anne  looked  at  her  pictures  in  disgust. 
Self-expression  !  It  was  there.  She  had 
succeeded  in  putting  on  canvas  something 
of  her  inner  view  of  things.  Self  —  it  had 
always  been  herself !  That  was  in  the  fur- 
nishings of  the  room,  in  the  painted  faces 
on  the  walls.  Oh,  if  she  could  only  escape 
from  the  loathsome  closed  circle ! 

She  flung  herself  upon  the  sofa,  burying 
her  face  in  a  pine  pillow.  Its  pungent 
odours  brought  back  the  old  child-days. 

"  You  have  succeeded,"  she  murmured, 
"and  I'd  like  to  know  of  what  consequence 
your  self-expression  is,  anyway  !  " 

Outside  was  the  twitter  of  nesting  spar- 
rows. Her  spirits  beat  against  the  enclos- 
ing bars  like  the  wings  of  an  imprisoned 
bird.  Presently  she  lifted  her  face  and 
laughed. 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  147 

"  Nothing  sadder  can  happen  to  any 
man  than  to  get  what  he  wants.  Hence- 
forth I  shall  pray  daily :  '  Grant  me  any- 
thing, O  Lord,  except  the  desire  of  my 
heart.'  " 


CHAPTER   XIX 

THE  April  air  had  grown  warm  and 
sweet.  Each  day  the  sun  went  down  in  a 
golden  haze.  The  willow  branches  were 
long  ripples  of  pale  green.  Along  the 
busy  streets  and  in  the  quiet  Square,  flower- 
boys  stood  with  baskets  of  pansies,  arbu- 
tus, anemones,  violets,  "  fi'  cents  a  bunch." 
In  the  air  a  fresh  quick  wind  beat  with  the 
beating  of  the  pulses. 

Through  the  swift  days  of  sunshine 
dashed  with  rain,  Helen  followed  a  vision 
of  Howard,  ill  and  beyond  her  reach. 
Anne  wandered,  uneasy  and  idle,  about 
Bohemia.  For  Mrs.  Kent  the  past  grew 
warm  in  the  sunlight  that  fell  upon  her 
face.  And  Howard  ? 

Howard  stood  one  day  by  his  window, 
pale  still  from  his  recent  illness.  Mrs.  Orr 
and  Annabel  were  busy  in  the  room. 

"  Give  me  days  of  golden  glory, 
With  my  windows  open  wide," 

he  hummed. 

148 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  149 

But  Mrs.  Orr  forbade  him  to  open  the 
window. 

"  Sure  as  you  do,  you'll  have  a  relapse," 
she  insisted,  as  she  left  the  room,  "and 
me  with  Tommy  and  Sarah  and  you  all  on 
my  hands." 

He  sank  meekly  into  a  chair. 

"  I  haven't  the  nerve  to  assert  myself," 
he  said.  "  My  spirit  is  broken  by  an 
infant  disease." 

He  looked  languidly  at  the  pile  of  mail 
that  had  accumulated  on  his  table  during 
the  past  weeks.  Then  he  tore  off  the 
cover  of  the  Art  Review. 

"  My  little  sisters  are  both  drowned," 
remarked  Annabel  mournfully. 

"What  little  sisters?"  he  asked  absent- 
mindedly.  He  was  reading,  not  without 
interest,  some  comments  on  his  work. 

"Not  a  mere  tour-de-force  —  a  keenly 
intelligent  facility  —  sensitive  and  thought- 
ful method — a  not  unnatural  divergence 
into  purely  subjectless  and  impersonal  mo- 
tifs—  subtle  in  effect,  ingenious  in  process 
—  note  the  intensity  of  expression " 


150  A   Puritan  Bohemia 

"That's  not  bad,"  commented  the  artist; 
"only  I  don't  half  deserve  it.  A  little 
sharp  criticism  would  be  better  for  me." 

"  My  little  sisters,  Euphrasia  and 
Amanda,"  continued  Annabel,  in  a  rather 
loud  tone. 

"Oh,"  answered  Mr.  Stanton.  "I  re- 
member your  little  sisters.  But  I  thought 
their  names  were  Ellen  and  Malvina." 

"  I  guess  I'd  better  go  and  get  my  dust- 
cloth,"  remarked  Annabel.  When  she 
came  back  her  face  had  brightened. 

"  My  little  sisters  have  two  names 
apiece,"  she  said  patronizingly.  "  I  couldn't 
explain,  because  I  was  in  a  hurry.  Please," 
she  added  in  a  whisper,  "don't  say  any- 
thing to  my  mother  about  my  little 
sisters." 

"Why  not?" 

"  Because  it  will  make  her  feel  so  bad. 
My  mother  was  very  fond  of  them.  It's 
awful  hard  for  her." 

But  Mr.  Stanton  was  busy  with  another 
article.  He  had  found  it  in  the  News  of 
two  weeks  ago. 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  151 

"  Mr.  Stanton  has  attempted  the  impos- 
sible with  commendable  courage,"  wrote 
the  critic,  "but  without  succeeding  in 
making  it  convincing.  In  facing  'Art 
and  Need '  we  stand  in  the  full  blast  of 
the  orchestral  colour-box.  His  gorgeous 
skies,  of  greenish  hue,  combine  with  his 
trees  of  violet  to  set  forth  an  idea  better 
adapted  to  the  lecture-platform  than  to 
canvas.  This  is  mere  rhetoric." 

"The  idiot!"  remarked  Mr.  Stanton 
politely,  tossing  the  paper  across  the  room. 

He  was  not  comforted  even  by  the 
mystic  notice  in  the  Spectator. 

"While  it  might  be  urged  that  Mr. 
Stanton's  design  is  rather  decorative  than 
pictorial,  suited  rather  to  large  architect- 
ural spaces  than  to  a  single  canvas,  there 
is  an  unspeakable  something  about  the 
work  that  holds  the  spectator.  In  this, 
reduced  as  it  is  to  the  indifferent  naked 
typical,  one  detects  a  soaring  quality. 
Here  is  a  constant  aspiration  toward  the 
unattainable.  Here  is  an  insatiable  need 
of  the  beyond.  A  brilliant  future " 


152  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

"  Oh,  rats  !  "  interrupted  the  artist.  He 
lost  himself  in  gloomy  thoughts.  His 
admirers  misinterpreted  him.  His  critics 
misrepresented  him.  And  what  did  .it  all 
matter?  Anne  —  Anne  would  not  listen. 
He  had  chosen  the  wrong  guiding-star,  and 
all  his  reckonings  were  false. 

"  I'm  like  that  young  man  of  fame,"  he 
mused.  "  My  brilliant  future  is  behind  me." 

His  convalescent  melancholy  took  a 
didactic  turn. 

"  Annabel,"  he  said,  turning  to  the  child, 
"  we  have  made  a  mistake  about  you.  You 
ought  to  have  been  a  story-writer.  You 
have  a  genius  for  circumstantial  inven- 
tion." 

"  What  is  that,  sir  ? " 

"  It's  lying,"  said  the  young  man 
gravely.  "  Now  it's  all  very  well,  Anna- 
bel, for  you  to  make  things  up  when 
people  know  that  you  are  telling  stories. 
But  when  you  are  trying  to  make  people 
believe  what  isn't  so,  it's  downright 
wicked.  It's  mean.  You  might  do  no 
end  of  harm." 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  153 

Annabel  looked  bewildered,  then  burst 
into  tears. 

"Oh,  stop  that!"  said  Mr.  Stanton 
cheerfully.  "  I'm  not  scolding.  I  just 
wanted  to  make  you  see.  What  are  you 
crying  for  ? " 

"  I'm  afraid  you  won't  like  me  any 
more,"  sobbed  Annabel,  drying  her  eyes 
in  the  cheese-cloth  duster. 

"Yes  I  shall.  I  like  you  very  much. 
You  are  the  nicest  little  girl  I  know.  But 
I  want  to  be  able  to  depend  on  what  you 
say.  Did  you  think  that  I  believed  your 
yarns  ? " 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Well,  I  didn't.  You  are  just  as  trans- 
parent as  glass." 

"  I  can't  help  it,"  wailed  Annabel.  "  I'm 
just  sick  of  living.  I  don't  have  any 
pleasures.  I  wash  my  little  brother  every 
day,  and  scrub  my  steps,  and  work  from 
morning  till  night.  When  I  go  out  I  see 
the  same  wagons  standing  in  front  of  the 
same  houses  every  day.  My  life  is  pe'rfect 
misery." 


154  A   Puritan  Bohemia 

"  There,  don't  cry,"  said  the  young 
man.  "  I  didn't  mean  to  hurt  your  feel- 
ings. You  haven't  told  any  lies  about  me, 
I  know." 

"  Yes  I  have,"  howled  Annabel. 

"  What  ? " 

"  I  told  Miss  Wistar  and  Miss  Bradford 
things  because  I  liked  you.  I  told  them 
how  good  you  was." 

"  Is  that  a  lie  ? " 

"  I  told  'em  how  you  brought  things 
home  for  us,  and  how  one  day  you  was 
a-bringing  home  a  mop  and  pail,  and  you 
had  a  high  silk  hat  on.  And  an  old  gen- 
tleman came  along  and  you  said,  '  You 
wouldn't  do  things  like  this  for  poor 
people  ! ' ' 

The  young  man  shouted  with  laughter, 
then  became  suddenly  grave.  Annabel 
was  on  the  qui  vive.  Confession  was 
almost  as  dramatic  an  experience  as  lying. 

"Tell  me  what  else  you've  done,"  said 
Mr.  Stanton  sternly.  "  Have  you  told 
Miss  Bradford  any  more  things  that 
aren't  true  ? " 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  155 

"Yes,"  whimpered  Annabel.  "  I've  told 
her  the  things  you've  said  about  Miss 
Wistar." 

"What  have  I  said  about  Miss  Wistar?" 

The  fixed  idea  in  Annabel's  imagination 
had  become  half  reality. 

"  Why,  when  you  talked  to  her  picture," 
said  Annabel  reproachfully. 

"  Her  picture  !  "  gasped  Howard. 

"Once,"  asserted  Annabel,  "when  you 
was  sick,  you  said,  '  O  my  Amanda,  the 
task  of  forgetting  you  could  never  be  ac- 
complished.' And  once  you  said,  'To  you 
I  am  bound  by  a  sentiment  stronger  than 
love,  —  by  honour.' ' 

Annabel's  eyes  were  shining  with  inter- 
est through  her  tears.  Mr.  Stanton  had 
grown  white  with  anger.  The  child  was 
frightened. 

"  Have  you  told  any  of  this  nonsense  to 
Miss  Wistar  ? " 

"No,"  answered  Annabel  eagerly;  "not 
a  word.  Honestly  I  haven't." 

"Then,"  he  said  with  a  sigh  of  relief, 
"you  haven't  done  quite  as  much  harm 


156  A  Puritan   Bohemia 

as  you  might  have  done.  But  you've 
come  pretty  near  it.  This  explains  the 
'  inconstancy/ "  he  muttered  under  his 
breath. 

"I'm  glad  I  didn't  tell  Miss  Wistar," 
said  Annabel  guilelessly.  "  I  thought  you 
wouldn't  like  it." 


CHAPTER   XX 

"  Love  is  begun :  this  much  is  come  to  pass. 
The  rest  is  easy." 

In  a  Balcony,  BROWNING. 

THE  heavy  door  of  the  Inebriate  Asylum 
closed  with  a  thud  behind  Mrs.  Kent.  She 
turned  her  face  toward  home.  The  wicked 
old  woman  was  safe  at  last  behind  that  iron 
door. 

All  about,  laughing  Italian  children' were 
playing  in  the  sun.  Above  was  the  glory 
of  May  sunshine.  Mrs.  Kent  felt  a  sud- 
den reaction  from  a  long  strain.  Her 
anger  with  the  unnatural  mother  was  melt- 
ing into  a  sense  of  deep  kinship.  Her  pity 
came  back  upon  herself  with  a  sense  of 
forgiven  sin. 

"  For  none  may  walk  in  perfect  white 
Till  every  soul  be  clean," 

she  murmured. 

Across   the  warm    air   came   strains  of 


158  A   Puritan  Bohemia 

funeral  music.  There  was  a  beat  of  muf- 
fled drums.  The  Roman  Catholic  church 
near  by  was  draped  for  a  soldier's  funeral. 

Mrs.  Kent  stood  still  while  the  slow 
procession  passed.  The  colours  of  the 
flag  shone  bright  against  the  sombre  crepe. 
She  watched  the  faces  of  the  mourners, 
comic  in  their  self-importance,  or  tear- 
stained  with  real  grief.  Then  she  went  on. 

The  rude  music  turned  her  walk  into  a 
march  of  triumph.  She  had  found  at  last 
the  way  of  the  wandering  of  her  feet. 
These  grimy  alleys  had  led  her  to  a  goal. 
Grief  had  solved  her  problem  in  making 
her  aware  of  the  encompassing  grief. 
Life  with  sorrow  in  it  was  a  better  thing 
than  life  without  sorrow  could  be. 

"  After  knowing  joy  like  that  and  pain 
like  that,  one  has  a  right  to  share  every 
trouble,"  she  whispered. 

She  looked  at  the  passing  faces  and 
smiled.  A  larger  life  was  hers.  This 
was  her  people.  Her  life  was  one  with 
theirs,  the  sin  of  it,  the  suffering  of  it. 
The  music  of  their  funerals  was  sounding 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  159 

for  her  dead.  She  had  cared  for  that 
child  as  if  it  had  been  her  own,  and  the 
touch  of  its  mother's  hands  had  been  as 
the  touch  of  dear  dead  hands  upon  hers. 

Then  her  own  sorrow  came  sharply  back 
to  her. 

"Oh,"  she  cried  under  her  breath,  "if  I 
could  only  forget,  forget " 

Would  forgetting  her  own  hurt  mean 
forgetting  the  world's  pain  ?  She  walked 
swiftly  on  in  half-ecstatic  weariness.  Just 
now  it  seemed  that  the  glory  and  the  grief 
of  life  are  one. 

As  she  entered  the  Square  she  was  con- 
scious of  colour  and  of  fragrance.  The 
young  leaves  on  the  elms  and  the  willows 
shimmered  in  the  sun.  Flower-boys  stood 
at  the  corners  with  their  baskets.  The 
odour  of  new  grass  was  in  the  air. 

At  the  entrance  to  the  studio  building 
stood  Anne  with  Howard  Stanton.  He 
stooped  and  picked  a  bunch  of  violets 
from  a  basket  for  her.  The  sound  of 
their  laughter  and  the  chirping  of  the 
birds  drifted  to  Mrs.  Kent's  ears. 


160  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

Mrs.  Kent  looked  at  them  with  pity 
in  her  eyes.  They  were  so  happy,  she 
thought,  misunderstanding.  She,  who 
had  suffered  the  extreme  hurt,  was  safe 
and  sheltered  in  her  great  grief.  She 
could  not  be  afraid  again. 

Then  once  more  that  sudden  sense  of 
her  own  hurt  smote  her,  and  her  life  went 
out  in  the  cry  of  the  human  heart  for  its 
own.  A  pitying  wind  had  blown  her  long 
black  veil  across  her  face. 


CHAPTER    XXI 

ANNE  and  Howard  lingered  in  the 
Square  after  Mrs.  Kent  had  passed.  They 
watched  a  procession  of  women  filing  out 
of  the  Music  Hall  after  a  Bach  recital. 

"See,"  observed  Howard.  "There's 
the  woman-question  incarnate." 

"That  isn't  the  question.  It's  the 
answer,"  Anne  replied. 

"  I  feel  sadly  out  of  place  here." 

"  You  always  were.  Bohemia  is  no 
place  for  a  man." 

"  Well,  I  am  going  away.  My  work  is 
nearly  done." 

"  Going  away  ! "  exclaimed  Anne.  "  Just 
look  at  those  women,"  she  added  quickly. 
"  Don't  they  seem  intelligent  and  self- 
reliant  ? " 

"And  forlorn,"  he  responded  ungal- 
lantly.  "They  always  look  as  if  they 
were  going  to  some  place  very  fast,  but 
as  if  they  didn't  belong  anywhere." 

M  161 


1 62  A   Puritan  Bohemia 

"  What  will  become  of  your  night  school 
when  you  go  away,  and  of  your  lecture 
course  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  the  young  man 
with  a  sigh. 

"  You  reformers  are  all  singularly  irre- 
sponsible," said  Anne  severely,  "in  regard 
to  the  new  aspirations  that  you  rouse. 
You  create  a  demand  for  yourselves,  and 
then  you  disappear.  It's  very  bad  political 
economy." 

Looking  down  he  thought  he  saw  a 
slight  quiver  in  her  lip,  and  he  exulted. 

"  Aren't  you  going  to  invite  me  up  to 
see  what  you've  done  to  the  picture  ? "  he 
asked,  with  Machiavelian  intent. 

"  Certainly." 

He  held  the  great  door  open,  then  they 
climbed  the  stairs  together.  Howard's 
step  was  not  yet  firm. 

He  eyed  the  sailor's  picture  critically. 

"  That's  better,"  he  said.  "  You've  got 
some  of  the  man's  real  stupidity  into  it. 
Before,  he  realized  too  keenly  his  own 
pathos.  But  see !  The  background  is 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  163 

mixed  up  with  the  shoulder.  Put  a  single 
stroke  here." 

Anne  obediently  squeezed  some  Brus- 
sels brown  from  a  tube  and  took  up  her 
brush. 

"  Will  you  come  to  the  studio  for  a  fare- 
well supper  before  you  go  ?" 

"With  pleasure,"  he  responded.  Then 
he  muttered  something  under  his  breath. 

"Don't  do  that.  It  isn't  polite,"  said 
Anne. 

"  If  it  only  weren't  for  your  accursed 
theory,"  he  groaned,  with  a  sick  man's  im- 
patience, "  we  could  do  our  work  together, 
sharing  the  failure  and  the  success." 

"  Perhaps  it  is  your  philanthropic  the- 
ory," suggested  the  girl. 

"  I'll  give  it  up !  I'll  give  up  anything 
in  theory  or  in  practice  if  you  will  change 
your  mind." 

"  Oh  no  you  won't.  I  shouldn't  respect 
you  if  you  did." 

"  I  didn't  quite  mean  it,"  he  confessed. 
"Only,  most  theories  are  trash  when  it 
comes  to  a  question  of  living." 


164  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

"You  see,"  observed  Anne,  "I  could 
never  enter  into  that  part  of  your  work. 
I  could  not  devote  myself  to  you  and  the 
masses  too." 

"  You  devote  yourself  to  me,  and  I'll 
take  care  of  the  masses,"  he  answered, 
laughing. 

"  Let's  never  speak  of  it  again,"  begged 
Anne. 

"Well,"  said  Howard,  "I've  found  out 
one  thing.  The  individual  love  isn't  com- 
plete without  the  other.  One  must  care 
for  humanity  more  than " 

"  Why  don't  you  go  and  say  all  these 
things  to  humanity  ? "  murmured  Anne. 

"  I  shall,  if  you  persist.  I  shall  go  to 
live  in  the  slums,  and  shall  turn  every  cent 
I've  got  into  a  workingmen's  college." 

"  Do  it !  "  cried  the  girl.  "  I  like  your 
doing  these  things.  Only  I  sometimes 
think  that  there  is  the  least  bit  of  pose  in 
your  attitude." 

"  Perhaps  there  is,"  he  answered  humbly. 
"  I  am  never  quite  my  real  self  except 
when  I  am  with  you.  But  I  give  up  the 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  165 

battle.  Either  you  are  incapable  of  a 
great  devotion " 

Anne's  nostrils  dilated. 

"  The  meanest  device  of  those  who  have 
not  been  able  to  stir  your  nature  to  its 
depths  is  to  suggest  that  it  has  no  depths," 
she  remarked  loftily. 

"  Oh,  you  have  taken  a  vow,  and  you 
don't  dare  break  it." 

"  I  haven't !  "  cried  Anne.  "  No  woman 
ever  makes  a  resolution  like  that  without 
leaving  a  reserve  clause  in  it.  Only,  you 
aren't  in  my  reserve  clause." 

"Then  it  is  just  that  old  child-perversity 
of  yours.  You  won't  give  up,  simply  be- 
cause you  do  care.  For  I  believe  you  do 
not  know  your  own  mind  about  the 
matter.  You  change  your  point  of  view 
so  often.  You  give  a.  different  reason 
every  time." 

"  I  seem  to  be  consistent  in  my  deci- 
sion," said  Anne,  painting  steadily.  "  I 
have  told  you  that  I  cannot  serve  two 
masters.  Perhaps  it  is  because  I  am  a 
woman.  Perhaps  it  is  because  I  am  I. 


1 66  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

And  I've  told  you  that  my  feeling  is  inade- 
quate." 

"You  are  trying  to  reason  it  all  out," 
cried  Howard  impatiently.  "  Why  don't 
you  follow  instinct  ?  " 

"  I  do.  You  feel  that  it  is  right,  I  feel 
that  it  is  wrong.  Why  should  your  feel- 
ing prevail  ? " 

"  Don't  be  logical !  Logic  isn't  becom- 
ing in  a  woman,"  he  answered  with  a 
laugh. 

Anne's  face  grew  wistful. 

"  You  see,  it  would  be  cruel  to  you  to 
consent  when  I  don't  care  enough.  Be- 
sides," she  added,  with  changing  mood, 
"  I  told  you  long  ago  that  I  am  a  deliber- 
ate egoist." 

"  The  only  perfect  egoism  lies  in  self- 
surrender.  One.  can't  fulfil  one's  person- 
ality all  alone." 

"That,"  said  Anne,  "almost  wins  me." 

Striding  up  and  down,  Howard  watched 
her  as  she  worked.  The  penetrating  odour 
of  violets  filled  the  room.  He  would  al- 
ways remember  her  as  she  looked  now. 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  167 

"  It  all  rested  with  you.  You  have 
decided  it,"  he  said  vehemently.  "  If  it 
is  really  better  for  you  I  am  glad.  But 
I  don't  believe  that  it  is.  And  I  sha'n't 
quite  let  you  go.  You  can  never  get  away 
from  me.  I  shall  haunt  you.  I'll  be  the 
blunder  you  will  revert  to,  the  unanswered 
question,  the  other  possibility " 

In  his  strong  emotion  he  bent  his  head 
and  kissed  her. 

"  If  you  please  'm,"  said  a  polite  little 
voice  at  the  door,  "I  came  to  see  if  you 
wanted  me  to  do  any  errands." 

It  was  Annabel,  gazing  into  the  studio 
with  fascinated  eyes.  The  door  had  been 
left  slightly  open. 

Anne's  face  was  white  when  she  said 
good-bye  to  Howard. 

"  If  I  ever  wavered,  now  I  am  sure :  I'll 
never  surrender,  never  !  " 

In  the  fading  light  in  the  Square  How- 
ard Stanton  saw  upon  his  coat-sleeve  a 
tiny  fleck  of  brown  paint. 

"  I'm  a  monumental  fool,"  he  said  to 
himself. 


CHAPTER   XXII 

HELEN  WISTAR  came  in  out  of  the  twi- 
light in  a  mood  half  tragic,  half  joyous. 
She  had  been  walking  along  the  river.  All 
the  way  her  feet  had  beaten  time  to  the 
music  of  her  thoughts. 

She  scrutinized  her  picture  in  the  gath- 
ering darkness.  Was  it  so  bad  ?  That 
very  morning  Mr.  Stanton  had  pronounced 
severe  judgment  upon  it. 

"The  drawing's  all  wrong,"  he  had  said 
with  frankness.  "  And  it  is  neither  one 
thing  nor  the  other.  Your  figures  aren't 
people  and  they  aren't  symbols." 

Something  on  the  canvas  had  caught  his 
attention.-  He  had  examined  it  closely,' 
then  had  turned  toward  Helen  with  as- 
tonishment in  his  eyes.  The  girl  looked 
hurt. 

"Miss  Wistar,"  he  had  said,  in  that 
voice  which  so  often  caressed  the  listener 
without  the  owner's  will,  "you  weren't 
1 68 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  169 

meant  for  this  kind  of  thing.  There  is 
surely  something  better  in  store  for  you 
than  the  dry  bones  of  art." 

Yes,  the  picture  was  bad.  -Helen  real- 
ized this  as  she  looked  at  it  in  the  fading 
light.  But  it  did  not  matter.  Sorrow  for 
the  loss  of  the  lesser  thing  only  added 
glory  to  the  greater. 

She  seized  a  large  brush,  and,  with  a 
pretty,  melodramatic  motion,  dashed  a  long 
streak  of  red  paint  across  the  canvas. 

"Vanish!"  she  said,  half  laughing.  "So 
my  hopes  perish."  She  pushed  the  easel 
away  from  her. 

"  Oh,  Miss  Helen ! "  cried  a  wildly  excited 
voice.  "  Oh,  Miss  Helen !  what  do  you 
'spose  ? " 

It  was  Annabel,  breathless  with  excite- 
ment. Her  little  straw  hat  was  hanging 
by  its  elastic  to  her  neck.  The  pupils  of 
her  eyes  were  dilated. 

"I  always  thought  it  was  you,"  gasped 
Annabel. 

"  Thought  what  was  I  ? "  asked  Miss 
Wistar,  bewildered. 


170  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

"  Her,  Miss  Bradford.  I  mean  him.  He 
came  into  Miss  Bradford's  studio,  and  she 
said,  '  Gracious  heavens  !  What  can  have 
brought  you-  here  ? ' ' 

"Who  came?" 

"  Mr.  Stanton  !  "  ejaculated  Annabel. 
"And  then,  and  then  he  said:  'Deem 
me  not  too  precipitate,  my  Amanda,  and 
he  passed  his  arm  gently  around  her 
waist.' ' 

"Annabel,  what  are  you  making  up 
now  ? "  asked  Miss  Wistar,  putting  her 
hand  upon  the  child's  shoulder.  "You 
said  something  like  that  once  before.  Who 
taught  you  ? " 

"It's  true,"  whimpered  Annabel,  "true 
as  I  live  and  breathe.  I  saw  it.  'Alter- 
nately he  knelt  at  her  feet,  alternately  he 
folded  her  to  his  bosom.' ' 

Miss  Wistar's  bewildered  laugh  brought 
the  child  back  from  the  world  of  her  imagi- 
nation. She  looked  up,  hurt.  Then  she 
spoke  with  a  candour  that  carried  convic- 
tion : 

"Anyhow,  he  kissed  her.     I  seen  him 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  171 

do  it,  Miss  Helen.  And  I  always  thought 
it  was  you  he  liked,  didn't  you  ? " 

"  No,"  answered  Helen  bravely  but  un- 
truthfully, "never." 

Annabel  went  away  after  a  brief  con- 
versation. Helen  stood  by  her  ruined  pict- 
ure, shamefacedly  conscious  of  what  she 
had  been  thinking  when  she  made  the 
great  red  stroke. 

"Oh,"  she  said,  gazing  at  her  work  with 
wet  brown  eyes.  "  Why  did  I  never  see?" 

Annabel's  words  had  been  a  sudden  flash 
of  light  along  the  path  of  the  whole  winter. 
It  was  all  clear.  Helen  sat  down  on  the 
pine  box  and  hid  her  face  in  her  hands. 
She  had  neither  art  nor  life.  There  was 
nothing  for  her  hands  to  hold  by.  She  had 
failed  to  reach  and  help  her  suffering  fel- 
low-women. She  had  failed  in  art.  Defeat, 
defeat,  defeat  was  written  on  the  walls, 
the  windows,  the  furniture  of  the  room. 
All  that  the  past  months  had  done  was  to 
create  a  great  lack  in  her  life  that  nothing 
now  could  ever  fill. 

A  practical  thought  at  last  stemmed  the 


172  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

tide  of  her  young  despair.  She  remem- 
bered that  she  had  not  washed  her  break- 
fast dishes,  and  rose  with  a  certain  sense 
of  relief.  She  lit  her  lamp  and  put  on  a 
white  apron,  then  washed  her  china,  drying 
it  daintily.  There  was  comfort  in  the  act. 
It  was  a  kind  of  link  between  this  exist- 
ence of  shifting  sand  and  the  old  life. 
The  linen  towel  in  her  hand  and  the  tiny 
dish-pan  carried  her  thoughts  back  to  the 
days  when  her  old-fashioned  mother  had 
washed  the  silver  in  the  mornings  on  the 
dining-room  table. 

Helen  paused,  with  soapsuds  on  her 
hands,  in  sudden  longing  for  the  warmth 
and  comfort  and  safety  of  that  unenlight- 
ened home.  She  could  see  it  distinctly 
—  the  elm  trees  by  the  gate,  the  green 
embankment,  and,  inside  the  broad  door, 
the  great  hall  with  its  deep  fireplace  and 
leather-cushioned  chairs. 

"  I  am  going  back,"  she  said  simply. 


CHAPTER   XXIII 

"Quelque  terme  ou  nous  pensions  nous  attacher  et 
nous  affermir  il  branle  et  nous  quitte;  et,  si  nous  le 
suivons,  il  echappe  a  nos  prises,  nous  glisse,  et  fuit  d'une 
fuite  eternelle." — Pensees,  PASCAL. 

"  LET'S  sit  by  the  fire,"  suggested  Anne, 
"  and  utter  '  cosmic  platitudes  '  for  the  last 
time." 

"  It  is  too  bad,"  said  Mrs.  Kent  mourn- 
fully. "  The  winter  has  been  so  interest- 
ing, and  now  you  are  going  away.  That  is 
the  trouble  with  Bohemia  :  nothing  stays." 
."That's  the  trouble  with  life,  isn't  it?" 
remarked  Howard  wearily.  "  Nothing 
stays,  except  an  endless  process  by  which 
we  learn.  We  never  really  attain." 

"  Oh  yes  we  do ! "  contradicted  Anne. 
"The  Lord  usually  gives  you  the  thing 
you  want  after  you  have  begun  to  stop 
caring  for  it." 

"That's  the  first  pessimistic  remark  I 
ever  heard  you  make,"  said  Howard. 

m 


174  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

"  I  usually  make  my  pessimistic  remarks 
when  you  aren't  around,"  Anne  replied. 

A  fresh  wind  was  blowing  into  the 
studio.  Through  the  skylight  two  stars 
were  visible  in  the  pale  spring  sky.  A 
fire  had  been  kindled  on  the  hearth,  "for 
sentiment,"  Anne  said. 

"  How  in  the  world,"  asked  Howard, 
"do  you  derive  that  notion  from  success 
in  the  one  thing  you  always  wanted  ? " 

"  Oh,  success  tarnishes  your  hope," 
answered  Anne  with  a  laugh,  "and  makes 
it  suffer  the  fatal  change  from  the  thing 
you  want  to  the  thing  you  have." 

"Just  what  I  said!"  cried  Howard  tri- 
umphantly. "The  only  possession  lies  in 
not  having." 

"  I  told  you  that  long  ago,"  murmured 
Anne. 

"That  was  different  altogether.  This 
is  a  general  question." 

"That  was  a  childish  notion  about 
heaven,"  Anne  continued,  "'They  shall 
hunger  no  more,  neither  thirst  any  more.' 
Think  how  insufferable  eternity  would  be 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  175 

without  the  one  thing  that  makes  time 
endurable." 

"  One  wouldn't  mind  the  endless  chang- 
ing," interrupted  Helen  from  her  corner, 
"  if  one  really  learned  anything.  We  just, 
go  round  and  round  like  squirrels  in  a 
cage." 

"Somebody,"  Anne  remarked,  "said 
that  all  progress  was  simply  a  moving 
round  from  one  part  of  the  circle  to 
another." 

"  That  may  be  true,"  Howard  answered  ; 
"  only,  when  you  get  back  to  the  starting- 
point,  you  find  that  it  isn't  the  same 
point." 

He  rose  to  take  Helen's  cup,  noticing, 
as  he  did  so,  that  her  cheeks  looked  thin 
in  the  firelight. 

"  It  is  for  the  last  time,"  he  said,  as  he 
held  out  his  hand.  The  girl  started,  and 
Anne's  pet  Sevres  cup  fell  to  the  floor. 
Then,  first,  the  young  man  caught  the 
expression  in  Helen's  eyes  when  they 
rested  on  him. 

"  That's  symbolic,"  said  Anne.     "  No  ; 


176  A   Puritan  Bohemia 

I  don't  mind  in  the  least.  Bohemia  began 
with  that  cup,  and  all  the  illusions  of 
Bohemia  perish  with  it." 

"  Mend  it,"  suggested  Howard,  holding 
up  the  fragments.  "  Life  is  nothing  but  a 
putting  together  of  the  broken  pieces.  I 
can  imagine  a  process  of  learning  through 
loss  that  would  make  one's  failures  satis- 
factory. By  the  way,  when  success  comes, 
it  doesn't  usually  take  the  shape  that  you 
expect.  The  Art  Museum  has  offered  to 
buy  my  picture,  on  condition  that  its  name 
shall  be  changed  !" 

"  Accept !  "  cried  Anne.  "  Change  the 
name  every  year.  Think  how  many  noble 
truths  you  could  illustrate." 

The  conversation  drifted  on  through  the 
old,  great  themes.  Half  earnestly,  half  in 
jest,  they  repeated  worn  remarks,  weighed 
down  by  that  dull  sense  of  foreboding  that 
haunts  all  partings.  The  sky  above  grew 
darker  ;  the  stars  shone  out  more  clearly. 

"  Isn't  there  anything  that  lasts?"  asked 
Helen  despairingly. 

"  Yes,"  murmured  Mrs.  Kent. 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  177 

"  If  I  could  only  paint  those  lovely,  tri- 
umphant eyes,"  thought  Anne,  watching 
Mrs.  Kent's  face  in  the  flickering  light, 
"  I'd  call  the  picture  '  Love  and  Death.'  " 

"You  are  all  too  impatient,"  said  Mrs. 
Kent.  "Wait.  In  the  great  moments  of 
experience,  one  knows.  One  feels  that 
one  is  working  with  God  at  the  heart  of 
things,  and  knows  more  than  one  can 
explain." 

"  Suppose  we  haven't  any  great  mo- 
ments ? "  said  Howard  grimly. 

"There's  your  philosophy  of  learning 
through  loss,"  answered  Mrs.  Kent.  "Mo- 
ments of  denial  may  be  great." 

She  looked  sadly  at  Anne.  To  her  it 
seemed  that  the  girl  had  made  the  great 
mistake  of  her  life. 

"That  is  pretty  thin  philosophy,  when 
it  comes  to  personal  application,"  said 
Howard,  shaking  his  head. 

"Most  philosophy  is,"  suggested  Anne. 

<:  After  all,  there's  some  truth  in  it. 
Life  is  just  a  chance  to  learn  by  living  out 
your  own  life  faithfully,"  Howard  remarked. 


178  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

"  Isn't  it  a  chance  to  learn  to  enter 
other  people's  lives  ? "  asked  Mrs.  Kent. 
"One's  joy  and  one's  sorrow  come  to 
make  one  understand." 

"  How  can  one  understand  other  people's 
lives,"  demanded  Anne,  "when  it  is  so 
hard  to  make  the  least  sense  out  of  one's 
own  ? " 

"Oh  dear!"  groaned  Helen,  "you  are 
all  saying  just  the  opposite  of  what  you 
said  at  first.  Don't  you  remember  ?  " 

They  did  remember,  and  they  laughed. 

"All  this  confirms  Mrs.  Kent's  idea 
that  opinions  are  not  of  much  account," 
said  Anne.  "  Miserere  is  the  only  one 
who  has  been  true  to  his  philosophy." 
She  stroked  the  cat  lying  in  her  lap. 
"  He  has  the  only  kind  of  philosophy  one 
can  be  true  to." 

"  We  have  changed  our  points  of  view," 
said  Mrs.  Kent  meditatively.  "That,  is 
because  we  have  faced  certain  experiences. 
Life  always  outstrips  opinion.  We  learn 
the  secret  bit  by  bit,  and  not  by  thinking 
only.  Every  vivid  experience  is  like  touch- 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  179 

ing  the  eyes  of  the  blind.  After  it,  we 
see  forces  written  over  with  meanings  that 
escaped  us  before.  So  we  go  creeping 
nearer  and  nearer  the  heart  of  things. 
There  are  worlds  within  worlds." 

The  studio  was  silent  for  a  minute,  ex- 
cept for  Miserere's  purring. 

"After  all,  the  beauty  of  it  lies  in  the 
mystery,"  continued  Mrs.  Kent.  "  Life  is 
full  of  subtle  hints,  as  if  its  experiences 
were  symbols  of  something  greater,  that 
we  cannot  understand,  yet." 

"  Oh  dear  !  "  said  Anne.  "  Life  seems 
to  be  a  kind  of  game  where  the  new  ques- 
tion rises  to  the  lips  of  the  man  who 
answered  the  last  one.  I  suppose  that  the 
privilege  of  saying  the  last  word  is  reserved 
for  the  last  man." 

It  was  growing  late.  Mrs.  Kent  rose 
to  go.  Anne  lit  the  lamp  and  gazed  sadly 
at  her  departing  friends. 

"  It  is  going  to  be  so  lonely  in  Bohe- 
mia ! "  she  said.  "  Mrs.  Kent  and  I  will 
go  about  with  slowly  whitening  hair, 
holding  converse  with  the  ghosts  of  our 


180  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

friends.  Then  grass  will  begin  to  grow 
in  the  pavement." 

"  The  fellowship  of  the  Round  Table  is 
broken  forever,"  said  Howard,  holding  out 
his  hand  in  parting. 

Anne's  eyes  grew  dim.  The  world  of 
real  people  seemed  for  a  moment  to  dis- 
appear with  those  familiar  faces  that  faded 
away  into  the  darkness  of  the  corridor. 


CHAPTER   XXIV 

"  Along  white  roadways  thou  shalt  travel 
Whereon  men  thirst." 

The  Bard  of  the  Dimbovitza. 

THROUGH  the  hot  July  afternoon  Anne 
Bradford  worked  with  fierce  zest.  An  Ital- 
ian boy  was  posing  for  her,  a  tiny  creature 
whose  big  brown  eyes  and  pointed  chin 
suggested  a  baby  faun.  Anne's  eyes 
shone  as  she  sketched  the  shaggy  curls. 
At  length  the  child  grew  tired  and  she 
sent  him  home. 

The  artist  too  was  exhausted,  but  she 
did  not  know  it.  She  climbed  the  steps 
to  the  gallery  and  looked  out  upon  the 
deserted  Square.  All  the  shutters  were 
closed.  Only  here  and  there  a  row  of 
small  flower-pots  upon  a  window-sill  be- 
trayed the  presence  of  some  lingering 
Bohemian. 

Anne  leaned  her  elbows  upon  the  win- 
dow-seat and  dropped  her  head  upon  her 

181 


1 82  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

hands.  Once  again  life  was  like  wine 
upon  her  lips  in  the  joy  of  creating.  For 
days  she  had  been  toiling  with  her  brushes, 
painfully  conscious  of  herself.  Now  had 
come  one  of  the  divine  moments  when 
work  and  worker  are  one.  For  other 
people  there  were  other  ways  of  escape. 
This  was  hers. 

The  winter  and  its  perturbations  seemed 
very  far  away.  Now  that  its  troubles 
were  all  over  and  nothing  personal  greatly 
mattered,  the  old  inspiration  was  coming 
back.  Hope  and  -fear  and  regret  made 
only  a  kind  of  mental  atmosphere  in  which 
the  one  reality  of  Anne's  life,  her  art, 
stood  out  in  soft  relief. 

"  If  I  can  only  keep  out  of  my  own  way," 
she  murmured,  "I  can  do  something." 

Even  the  disillusionment  of  success  had 
ceased  to  pain.  To  have  expected  satis- 
faction from  anything  external  had  been 
childish.  In  no  flippant  sense  was  it  true 
that  the  thing  one  has  is  not  the  thing 
one  wants.  Truly  one  never  reaches  any 
place  without  finding  that  the  place  is  not 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  183 

there.  The  worn  ideas  came  to  the  girl 
with  the  poignancy  of  a  new  experience. 
She  had  —  all  she  wanted — a  chance  to 
work  on.  In  store  for  her  were  perhaps 
keener  insight,  greater  skill,  a  firmer  grasp 
on  the  real  meanings  of  things. 

A  spray  of  ivy  outside  the  window  blew 
out  into  the  sun.  Its  beauty  brought 
quick  tears  to  Anne's  tired  eyes.  For  all 
that  the  artist  missed  there  was  com- 
pensation in  the  added  preciousness  of 
little  things.  Surely,  in  a  world  so  prod- 
igal of  life,  there  was  a  place  for  the  mere 
watcher.  Among  people  who  squandered 
experience  so  recklessly  there  was  room 
for  one  whose  task  was 'to  record. 

It  was  a  limited  life,  but  one  need  not 
suffer  all  in  order  to  understand.  He  who 
"raised  the  walls  of  man  "  made  them  not 
altogether  opaque.  Oh,  people  did  not 
know  how  keen  the  taste  of  another's 
experience  might  be !  For  some,  the 
crumbs  that  fall  from  the  rich  man's 
table  have  made  a  liberal  feast.  Here 
was  the  eternal  paradox  of  art,  to  feel 


184  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

all  so  sharply,  to  have  nothing  of  one's 
own. 

Here,  too,  was  the  divine  satisfaction 
of  the  artist,  —  to  lose  the  consciousness 
of  self,  to  be  only  a  mirror,  reflecting  the 
faces  of  others.  Not  self-expression,  but 
accurate  report,  was  what  one  should  strive 
for.  From  that  criticism  of  her  too  ego- 
istic work  she  would  start  out  with  a 
prayer  for  clearer  vision. 

Yes,  this  was  her  home.  She  looked 
out  with  quiet  exultation  at  the  Square. 
Angle  and  corner,  clinging  wisteria  and 
quaint  window  were  hers  in  peculiar  pos- 
session. For  her  remained  strenuous  en- 
deavour, stern  discipline ;  for  her,  too,  the 
moments  when  the  shaping  idea  took  pos- 
session, walked  with  her  down  the  en- 
chanted street. 

Then,  there  was  Mrs.  Kent. 

Anne  thought  of  Howard  with  a  remote 
sadness. 

"  If  it  had  not  been  for  Mrs.  Kent,  I  might 
have  given  up.  The  real  thing  is  too  beau- 
tiful to  be  imitated  in  any  kind  of  sham." 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  185 

But  apparently  it  was  the  real  thing  for 
Howard.  Oh,  this  was  a  puzzling  world ! 

It  was  not  real  for  her.  Down  under 
love  and  friendship  and  every  human  feel- 
ing lay  the  artist  passion.  This  alone  had 
haunted  her  at  night,  risen  with  her  in  the 
morning,  had  been  "  nearer  than  breathing, 
closer  than  hands  and  feet."  It  was  the 
deepest  reality,  as  yet.  To  it  should  be 
given  the  devotion  of  an  undivided  heart. 

She  was  to  be  only  a  wayfarer,  then, 
past  other  people's  lives.  From  the  pict- 
ure above  the  door  her  father's  eyes 
looked  over  to  her  with  the  old  sympathy. 
Into  her  mind  came  a  fragment  of  the 
Odyssey  that  she  had  translated  for  him 
long  ago  in  his  study  at  Hazleton  : 

"  Whoso  draws  near  unwarned  and  hears 
the  Sirens'  voices,  by  him  no  wife  nor  little 
child  shall  ever  stand,  glad  at  his  coming 
home." 


EPILOGUE 

"  THREE  years  ago  to-day,"  said  Howard 
Stanton,  "you  went  away  from  Bohemia." 

"And  a  year  ago  day  before  yesterday," 
answered  Helen,  "you  came  striding  up 
that  walk.  Do  you  remember?" 

"  Do  I  remember !"  he  cried.  "  I  stayed 
away  as  long  as  I  could." 

They  were  sitting  on  the  veranda  of 
Helen's  ancestral  home.  Ivy  and  clema- 
tis and  wisteria,  climbing  about  the  stone 
pillars,  made  a  green  background  for  the 
two  heads.  Before  them  stretched  the 
lawn  that  had  been  the  pride  of  Helen's 
great-grandfather. 

"I  told  Sarah  to  bring  out  the  tea- 
things,"  said  a  soft  voice  from  the  door- 
way. "  Now  I  am  going  upstairs.  I  do 
not  care  for  any  tea." 

A  gray-haired  lady  was  standing  behind 
them.  Family  tradition  lurked  in  the  old- 
fashioned  curls  at  the  sides  of  her  face, 
186 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  187 

and  in  the  stiff  folds  of  her  black  silk 
gown.  Her  brown  eyes  rested  affection- 
ately on  Howard.  She  adored  her  daugh- 
ter's fiance". 

"Don't  leave  us,"  begged  Helen.  But 
the  mother  had  already  gone. 

Presently  a  maid  appeared  with  a  tray. 
She  was  tall  and  thin.  A  becoming  cap 
rested  on  her  brown  hair.  It  was  Anna- 
bel—  Annabel,  subdued  by  two  years  of 
training  into  a  most  unnatural  silence. 
She  skilfully  arranged  the  table,  then 
disappeared. 

It  was  a  silver  service.  Cups  and 
saucers,  cream  jug  and  sugar  holder  had 
been  brought  long  ago  by  an  ancestress 
from  England.  Helen  toyed  with  the 
cups,  then  slowly  made  the  tea. 

"Tell  me  about  Mrs.  Kent  —  and 
Anne,"  she  said. 

"They've  gone  to  live  in  a  remarkable 
apartment,"  Howard  responded  briskly. 
"  Page  ;  reception-room  downstairs  ;  din- 
ing-room in  the  suite.  They  have  their 
dinners  sent  up  through  hot  tubes,  or 


1 88  A  Puritan  Bohemia 

some  such  way.  It  is  luxury  that  ought 
to  disturb  Anne's  conscience." 

"And  Anne's  pictures?  Her  letters 
say  nothing  about  them." 

"Anne  is  a  success,  even  financially. 
I  am  proud  of  her,"  said  Howard,  laying 
a  biscuit  on  Helen's  saucer. 

Helen  looked  at  him.  The  old  hero- 
worship  in  her  eyes  was  blended  now  with 
something  else.  He  was  handsomer  than 
ever,  she  thought.  The  slight  plumpness 
was  becoming. 

"Howard,"  she  asked  slowly,  "have  you 
ever  been  sorry  that  you  came  ?  " 

He  put  down  his  cup,  and  faced  her  in 
astonishment. 

"  Sorry  ?  Oh,  my  darling  !  My  spirit 
has  come  home  at  last,  to  the  only  home 
that  it  has  ever  had." 

She  turned  and  faced  him.  Above  the 
creamy  laces  of  her  dress  her  face  rose 
like  a  brilliant  flower. 

"  Do  you  ever  wish  that  I  were  Anne  ? " 

"No,"  he  answered  firmly.  "Anne  is 
Anne,  and  you  are  you." 


A   Puritan  Bohemia  189 

"  But  you  cared  !  " 

"I  care  yet,  only  differently.  We're 
the  best  friends  in  the  world.  Things  have 
fallen  into  the  right  place,  that  is  all.  I 
sometimes  wonder  how  the  old  boyish  pas- 
sion could  have  lasted  so  long.  Now  it  is 
settled.  You  see,  there  is  nothing  so  com- 
pletely gone,  when  it  is  gone,  as  a  feeling." 

There  was  a  silence. 

"Anne  never  quite  sympathized  with  my 
wish  to  help  the  unfortunate.  She  could 
not  enter  into  that.  I  feel  more  and  more 
sure  that  that  is  the  enduring  part  of  me, 
my  permanent  self.  In  this  you  and  I  are 
one.'' 

"  We  must  do  a  great  many  things," 
said  Helen  thoughtfully.  "  Of  course 
we  cannot  leave  mother,  to  go  to  live  in 
the  slums.  When  father  died  I  promised 
to  stay  with  her  always.  But  we  can  help 
with  money." 

"  I'll  go  to  the  city  frequently  to  see 
how  things  are  getting  on." 

Helen  pointed,  smiling,  to  a  space  among 
the  trees, 


A   Puritan  Bohemia 


"That  is  where  your  studio  is  to  stand," 
she  whispered. 

Howard  suddenly  turned. 

"  Where's  the  symbolic  picture  that  you 
did?  Did  you  destroy  it." 

"  No  ;  it's  upstairs,"  answered  Helen, 
flushing.  "Please  don't  ask  to  see  it." 

But  his  wish  prevailed,  and  Annabel  was 
sent  to  bring  the  picture  from  the  garret. 
She  eyed  her  young  mistress  and  her 
lover  affectionately.  Annabel's  artistic 
sense  of  the  fitness  of  things  was  satisfied 
at  last. 

"Why!"  cried  Helen,  as  she  looked  at 
the  motley  group,  the  disfiguring  streak  of 
paint,  and  the  retreating  figure  of  the  rich 
young  man,  "  that  young  man's  face  looks 
like  you.  I  never  saw  that  !  " 

"I  did,"  said  Howard.  "It  was  the 
picture  that  first  made  me  think  -  " 

"Think  what?"  demanded  Helen. 

"  That  you  weren't  meant  for  an  artist," 
he  answered  hastily,  pointing  to  the  dis- 
torted drawing.  Then  he  changed  the 
subject.  The  literary  significance  of  that 


A  Puritan  Bohemia  191 

half-portrait  seemed  unpleasantly  appropri- 
ate in  the  light  of  his  present  surroundings. 

The  sun  went  slowly  down.  Shadows 
crept  across  the  lawn.  From  marshy 
places  near,  the  notes  of  hylas  came  to 
them,  cool  and  sweet.  The  charms  of  love 
and  spring  and  twilight  blended. 

In  the  gathering  darkness  Howard  took 
the  girl's  soft  hand  and  placed  it  against 
his  forehead. 

"  It  is  hard  to  believe,"  he  said,  "  in  sym- 
pathy so  deep.  You  are  more  real  to  me 
than  myself,  the  meaning  of  myself." 

The  white  fingers  caressed  his  hair.  As 
he  spoke  again,  the  words  had  a  familiar 
sound.  Had  he  read  them  somewhere? 
It  did  not  matter.  He  was  deeply  in 
earnest. 

"  You  hold  my  whole  life  in  the  hollow 
of  that  hand." 

THE   END 


An  Experiment  in  Altruism, 


BY 


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